
♦ LIBRARY OF COKGRESSj 


rfoputisM I 


f UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



\ 





A FAMILY SECEET, 


A NOVEL. 


By “ELZET hat.” 

(FANNY ANDREWS.) 





PHILADELPHIA: 

J. B. lippin'cott & CO. 

1876 . 

f 


Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1876, by 
FANNY ANDKEWS, 

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. 


PREFACE. 


A PREFACE is almost a work of supererogation, since few people 
ever stop to look at it; though it would be but fair, before passing 
judgment on an author, to see what he may have to say for himself. 

It is unfair, for instance, to find fault with a book for not fulfilling 
purposes which it was never designed to fulfill; and by way of dis- 
arming such criticism, it may as well be stated, in the outset, that the 
present volume is very simple and unpretending in its aims, being 
written solely to amuse. It is not a sugar-coated pill to doctor public 
morals ; it does not pretend to convey instruction on any subject, nor 
does it aspire, as a work of art, to portray grand and lofty passions ; but 
if it shall help to while away one weary hour, if it shall beguile one 
heavy heart into momentary forgetfulness of its burden, the writer will 
feel that it has not been given to the world in vain. 

One caution it may be best, perhaps, not to omit here. Some 
sensitive critics may imagine that the character of JEneas Tadpole is 
intended as a satire upon the ministers of religion. Far be such a 
thought from the heart of this writer. The character named is merely 
designed as a portrayal of ineffable meanness, and hypocrisy, as the 
basest of meanness, is made his predominant trait. 

And now, the author having pleaded its cause, the work must stand 
its trial at the bar of public opinion, the highest tribunal to whose 
judgment a writer can appeal. Trusting the verdict may be a favorable 
one, the author commits the work to its fate. 







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CONTENTS, 


CHAPTER PAGE 

I. Mrs. Bottom’s Hotel . 7 

IT. Waiting eor the Train 15 

III. A Lady shows her King 21 

IV. A Tress of Hair 28 

Y. Mr. Chance makes a New Acquaintance . . . .29 

VI. Some Scraps of Family History . , J , , , 32 

VII. Going Home 36 

VIII. The Bruens 41 

IX. Family Connections 45 

X. The Credit of the Family is in Danger .... 50 

XI. Audley conforms to the Customs of the Country . . 52 

XII. A Bend Sinister and a Halter 55 

XIII. Quasimodo .61 

XIV. Mr. Bruen carries his Point 65 

XV. Mr. Bruen as Envoy Extraordinary 69 

XVI. Was it a Ghost? 73 

XVII. The Young Savage Tamed . . 76 

XVIII. A Minister of the Gospel 78 

XIX. Kuth makes a Friend 82 

XX. ^neas Falls into the Hands of the Philistines . , 88 

XXI. The Tournament 96 

XXII. A Suspicious Character 101 

XXin. The Tournament Ball 106 

XXIV. A Friendly Warning 110 

XXV. The Bird has Flown 115 

XXVI. In the Bowels of the Earth 120 

XXVII. Filthy Lucre 125 

XXVIII. How Audley Malvern commenced Bringing Things to a 

Crisis 130 

XXIX. .^NEAS MAKES A DECLARATION . . . . * . . 134 

XXX. Audley comes very near making a Fool of Himself. . 136 

XXXI. Kuth’s Plot, and What Came of It 139 

XXXII. The Blonde Curl . ' . 146 

XXXIII. JEneas makes a Kevelation 150 

XXXIV. A Clue to the Mystery 154 

XXXV; The Pride of the Malverns has a Fall .... 158 

XXXVI. The Major put to Rout 164 

XXXVII. Under the Black Flag 169 

XXXVIII. Shooting a Man in the Back 172 

XXXIX. George Dalton receives a Telegraphic Dispatch . . 176 

XL. A Gunpowder Plot 178 

XLI. Kizpah 181 

XLII. A Descent into Hell 185 

XLIII. A Resurrection from the Dead 188 

XLIV. The Mystery Solved 189 

XLV. George Dalton Hardens his Heart 195 

XLVI. Out of the Jaws of Death .... . . 200 

XLVII. Mr. George Bruen objects to turning a Somersault . 202 

XLVIII. A Wedding or a Funeral? 206 


XLIX. Everybody gets Married, and Lives Happy Forever After 211 

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t. S Ve \ 



A FAMILY SECRET 


CHAPTER 1. 

MRS. Bottoms’s hotel. 

“ Four hours more I This is the deuce 
of a business, waiting half the morning 
at a confounded little country station with- 
out even a cigar to help a fellow pass the 
time I” And the speaker turned, with a 
gesture of impatience, from the window 
of the car, through which he had been 
conversing with some one outside. He 
was a strikingly handsome young man, 
dressed in the uniform of a lieutenant in 
the United States army, and apparently 
just entering upon his third decade of 
life. He sat still for a few moments, with 
his hands in his pockets, looking intensely 
out of humor, then rose as if to leave the 
car, but paused before turning towards 
the door, while an amused smile crept 
over his features as he surveyed the scene 
around him. 

It was not a very inviting one. “ Pull- 
man sleepers” were unknown in those 
days, and the early dawn of a sultry Au- 
gust morning glared hot and red upon 
the tired passengers, tumbled about in 
confused heaps on the hard, comfortless 
benches. The picture was as grotesque 
as it was cheerless. The train had not 
been in motion for more than an hour, and 
most of the passengers were beginning to 
rouse themselves and inquire peevishly 
into the cause of the delay, though some 
favored few, possessed of an admirable 
talent for sleeping under difficulties, were 
still snoring away in blissful unconscious- 
ness of wry necks and twisted spines. 
One very pretty young lady was crushing 
her bonnet against the side of the car 
with stolid insensibility, and a skittish 
old widower just in front, who had lost 
his wig, slumbered on as tranquilly as if 
his bald scalp had not been shining full 
in the face of unconscious beauty. Fur- 
ther on a rural member of the Legislature, 


who had taken off his shoes and hung his 
stockinged feet out at the window for the 
edification of the traveling public, was 
still serenely sleeping, with his head dang- 
ling over the wooden arm of the seat into 
the passway, while the red morning sun 
streamed full upon his face, and the flies* 
whisked around his wide-open mouth at 
pleasure. Most of the travelers, however, 
as we have said, were beginning to in- 
dulge in those preliminary yawnings and 
stretchings that betoken a general waking 
up, and our hero’s impatient exclamation, 
though not meant to be heard inside the- 
car, was received there with a growl of 
assent, chiming in, as it did so exactly,, 
with the state of public feeling. 

“ What’s this confounded delay about,, 
anyhow?” inquired a stout old gentleman 
over the way, shaking himself up into a 
sitting posture, and popping his red face 
out at the window. 

“A freight-train just ahead of us 
smashed up last night,” answered our 
hero, who had been making inquiries of 
the people outside ; “ and they say it will 
be impossible to get the track clear for 
twenty-four hours, so there is nothing for 
it but to wait till the down-train comes in 
at ten o’clock, then change cars and let 
it turn back westward with us.” 

Ten o’clock, the devil ! What time is 
it now?” 

“Just a quarter to six. Halloo, my 
man,” continued the young officer, ad- 
dressing one of the train -hands who 
entered just then with a can of water, 
“ what are our chances for breakfast this 
morning? I’m as empty as a charity- 
box !” 

The man laughed, and cast a significant 
glance through the window towards the 
barren red hills, washed into yawning 
gullies, and interspersed with groves of 
scrubby pine that stretched in every direc- 
tion far as the eye could reach. 

“ Blackberries is gone,” he said, with 


8 


A FAMILY SECRET. 


a jocose smile, as he 'withdrew his eyes 
from this silent survey of the unpromis- 
ing landscape and fixed them upon the 
face of his interlocutor, “but if you 
wouldn’t mind walking a mile or so,” 
he added, “ up to Mill Creek Junction, I 
reckon you can git a bit of something 
worth having at Mrs. Bottoms’s hotel. 
’Taint the reg’lar breakfast house, Mill 
Creek ain’t, but she’s a tip-top ’un, Mrs. 
Bottoms is, and can cook a meal’s vittles 
as good as any queen.” 

With this doubtful eulogy upon Mrs. 
Bottoms’s cuisine^ the man discharged a 
prodigious squirt of tobacco-juice by way 
of emphasis, and went about his busi- 
ness. 

The lieutenant yawned, muttered some- 
thing to himself in a tone of discontent, 
then put on his hat and started out, but 
•was detained as he passed the seat just 
back of his own by something pulling at 
his sleeve, and a soft, childish voice say- 

“Will you move this, please? My 
dress is caught, and Father Perline has 
gone to sleep.” 

The young ofiicer looked round and be- 
held a pretty little girl, some twelve or 
thirteen years old, tugging away with all 
her might at his valise, which had some- 
how slipped from its place and got wedged 
under the bench on which the child was 
sitting, drawing a fold of her dress along 
with it and pinning her down so fast that 
she could hardly move her lower limbs. 
By her side was reclining an elderly gen- 
tleman with a singularly attractive coun- 
tenance, who might have been taken for 
her father but that he wore the garb of 
a Romish priest. Ilis head was resting 
against the paneling of the car, and he 
seemed to have just fallen into a light 
slumber, from which the child was too 
considerate to wake him. There was a 
quaint blending of womanly thoughtful- 
ness and childish simplicity about her 
that amused the young man, and he be- 
came so absorbed in contemplating the 
sweet, upturned face that he forgot all 
about the child’s request until she again 
called his attention to it. 

“ Please, will you take away your va- 
lise?” she repeated, in a less patient tone. 
“ I can’t move my foot with it there.” 

Ashamed of his negligence, the young 
man darted at the offending article and 
drew it forth with such alacrity that he 
brought a piece of the child’s dress along 
with it. 

“ There, now, what an awkward vaga- 
bond I am I” he said, eying the rent rue- 


fully. “ I deserve that you should be very 
angry with me.” 

“ Oh, no, that is nothing,” cried the 
little girl, good-humoredly. “ Sister Ver- 
onica is not here to inspect, and I will pin 
it up so that nobody can see. Besides,” 
she added, with a twinkle in her eye that 
betrayed her a veritable daughter of Eve 
in spite of her staid, nun-like habit, “ I 
am to have new things, and am to leave 
off* the ugly dress they wear at St. Cath- 
erine’s when we get to New Orleans.” 

“ To New Orleans !” cried the young 
officer, in astonishment ; “ you are surely 
not going there ?” 

“Why not?” asked the child, wonder- 
ing at his surprise. 

“ Why, the yellow fever ! There never 
was such an epidemic known as is raging 
there now, and people have fled by thou- 
sands in every direction till the city is 
almost depopulated.” 

“That is just the reason why Father 
Perline is going,” said the child, quietly, 
“ because everybody else is running away, 
and there are none left to take care of the 
sick.” 

“ But you are too little to take care of 
the sick ; why does Father Perline carry 
you with him ?” 

“ To put me to school in the convent 
of St. Sacrament, where they go to learn 
music ; and, besides, I am not so little as 
you think me,” she added, drawing her- 
self up with an air of offended dignity. 
“ In three years and a half I shall be six- 
teen, and that is almost as old as Yictorine 
Lament, the oldest of all the old, old girls 
that used to sit in Sister Lucretia’s room 
at St. Catherine’s and do exercises in 
geometry. I wonder if people often live 
to be as old as Yictorine, and Father Per- 
line, and St. Joseph?” 

The young officer laughed. 

“ Not if they are put to school in plague- 
stricken cities,” he said, in an under- 
tone *, then, raising his voice, he asked, 
“Are you not afraid of the fever, little 
one ?” 

“No,” was the prompt reply, “that 
is,” added the child, after a moment’s 
consideration, “ I am not so much afraid 
of it as of Mr. Tadpole and that naughty 
boy iEneas, for my father said if 1 did 
not go to New Orleans with Father Per- 
line I should be sent bact to Mr. Tad- 
pole’s school.” 

“ Her father !” muttered the young man 
to himself. “ Great God ! what murder- 
ous fanatics these Catholics are !” 

“ But this child’s father is not a Cath- 
olic,” said a low, gentle voice, close to the 


MRS, B0TT03fS^S HOTEL. 


9 


lieutenant’s ear ; and glancing round, he 
saw the priest, who had been roused by 
their conversation, regarding him with a 
look of mild reproach. The young man 
colored. 

“ I beg your pardon, reverend father,” 
he began ; “ I am sorry if I have been 
surprised into committing a rudeness, but 
I could not help feeling shocked when I 
found you were taking this little one,” 
fixing his eyes again upon the child, who 
was now busy pinning up the rent in her 
dress, and seemed wholly unconscious that 
she was a subject of interest or remark to 
any one, “ into the very jaws of death. 
You have a right to dispose of your own 
life as you please, and I honor the great- 
ness of soul that ” 

“ No, no, young man, none of us has a 
right .to his own life,” replied the priest, 
interrupting him ; “ it belongs to God 
alone, and I cheerfully dispose of mine as 
he, through his Holy Church, may direct. 
In his name the Holy Mother sends me 
forth to minister to her dying children 
in my native city, and I have no right, 
even if I had a wish, to reject the mis- 
sion.” 

“ But, father,” persisted our hero, who 
was at an age when men feel much less 
diffident about taking their seniors to task 
than they become a few years later, and 
whose generous heart, moreover, prompted 
him to espouse, with all the ardor and in- 
discretion of youth, the cause of helpless 
innocence, ” do God and your church com- 
mand you wantonly to sacrifice the life 
of an innocent child?” 

^‘God commands us,” answered the 
priest, after a short pause, “ to care for 
the soul rather than the body. I Avould 
gladly have cherished both if I could, 
and left my precious little charge in the 
holy and safe retreat where I found her, 
till she could follow me without danger ; 
but her father directed otherwise, and the 
laws of the land place his authority 
above mine, — above even that of the Holy 
Church.” 

“ What an unfeeling monster her father 
must be !” exclaimed the lieutenant, in- 
dignantly. 

Quoniam pater mens et mater mea dere- 
linqiierunt me, Dominus autem assumpsit 
me,'' said the priest, laying his hand 
caressingly on the child’s head. “And 
those for whom the world has no place 
the Holy Church receives into her bo- 
som.” 

A horrible suspicion crossed the young 
man’s mind as the priest uttered these 
words. He turned and looked hard at the 


speaker, who met his eyes with a frank, 
open gaze, which at once convinced him 
that whatever wrong might be meditated 
against the child by others, the worthy 
ecclesiastic had no hand in it. The good 
father seemed to divine what was passing 
in the young man’s breast, and he pro- 
ceeded, as if answering the thought. 

“ The father of this child is a stranger 
to me ; I have seen him but once, and he 
confided nothing to me as to his intentions 
regarding her, but merely stated the al- 
ternatives between which I was forced to 
choose, — either to take her with me at 
once, or send her back to a place where, 
if all I have heard be true, she would run 
quite as great risks from neglect and ill 
treatment as she will in New Orleans 
from yellow fever ; at all events, her own 
choice is to go with me. Buth,” he con- 
tinued, appealing to the child, “ which 
would you rather do : go to New Orleans 
with Father Perline, and die of the fever, 
or be sent back to Mr. Tadpole?” 

The child answered by throwing her 
arms round the good man’s neck and 
clinging passionately to him. Affection 
for Father Perline, and dread of Mr. 
Tadpole, were evidently the fundamental 
dogmas of poor little Ruth’s orthodoxy. 

The passengers were all wide awake by 
this time, and our young friend felt that 
it would be out of place to continue 
longer a remonstrance which^ if he had 
been a few years older, he would have 
considered it impertinent to begin at all. 
He therefore dropped the subject, and 
invited his new acquaintances to join him 
in his walk to the Junction, and share his 
chances for getting breakfast. The priest 
declined for himself, but gratefully ac- 
cepted the offer for Ruth, promising that 
he would join them in an hour or so, and 
relieve the lieutenant of his charge. 

The little girl gave herself up to the 
care of her new protector with a confi- 
dence and self-possession which showed 
that she was quite used to the guardian- 
ship of strangers. As she descended from 
the car with a light bound, scarcely 
touching the hand held out for her sup- 
port, a little traveling-satchel she carried 
on her arm flew open, and a small 
volume, elegantly bound, dropped upon 
the ground. The lieutenant picked it 
up. 

“ Let me see what you have been read- 
ing,” he said, turning over the leaves. 
“Ah, it is all in French ; so you are a 
French scholar, ma petite f'' 

“ Yes ; everybody spoke French at St. 
Catherine’s.” 


10 


A FAMILY SECRET, 


“A book of devotions, too,” he con- 
tinued, casting his eyes over the pages ; 

that looks very pious. Are you going 
to be a nun ?” 

“ Oh, no, I am going to be a famous 
opera-singer,” was the naive rejoinder. 

“An opera-singer I What does Father 
Perline say to that?” 

“ He says I am too young to decide 
yet, but when I am grown, if'I will be 
very good, it may be that I can do my 
duty better by being a great and famous 
person than by becoming a nun. My 
father says I must be a nun, but I 
won^t.” 

The words were spoken with an air of 
decision that indicated a very determined 
character, and at the mention of her 
father the child’s face assumed a bitter- 
ness of expression painful to behold in 
one of her years. The young officer 
wondered if a dim shadow of the suspi- 
cion that haunted him had ever crossed 
her youthful mind. 

As he continued idly fingering the little 
volume in his hand, he chanced to turn 
over a fly-leaf at the beginning, on which 
was inscribed, in a precise female callig- 
raphy, the child’s full name, 

“Ruth Harfleur,” 

with other words, to the effect that the 
little book had been presented as a reward 
of merit by the Mother Superior of St. 
Catherine’s Convent, Quebec, Canada. 

“ So that is your name, is it?” said the 
lieutenant, reading the inscription aloud. 
“ Ruth Harfleur, — and a very pretty name 
it is, — French too.” And in this fact he 
seemed to perceive some possible expla- 
nation of the unnatural parent’s desire 
to have her reared in French convent 
schools ; but why New Orleans, rather 
than Quebec, just at this season ?• 

The child herself was perplexed with 
none of these questions. She liked her 
new companion, and was gratified to 
hear him praise anything belonging to 
her. 

“ Do you really like my name ?” she 
asked, looking up at him with a bright 
smile. “ I wonder if I should like yours 
too : is it a very pretty one?” 

“ I don’t know whether you would think 
so,” he replied, “ but it is a name that all 
who bear it are very proud of. I will put 
it down here by yours, so that you can 
judge for yourself, and then, maybe, you 
will look at it sometimes, and think of 
me, when I am far away.” With that, 
he wrote something in pencil just below 


Mother Isodora’s prim inscription, and 
returned the volume to Ruth, who read 
aloud, 

“Audley Malvern, 

“ Heath moor, 

“ Virginia.” 

“ Why, it sounds just as if it had come 
out of a novel !” cried the child, in a 
delighted voice. “ I like it a great deal 
better than my name.” 

“ You do? I must bear that in mind,” 
said Malvern, smiling, “for who knows 
but I may some day propose to you to 
make the exchange? I’ve a propensity 
for falling in love with opera-singers, and 
you will make an uncommonly pretty 
one, Ruth. AVhen I get to be a colonel, 
and you are a grown-up young lady, I 
mean to come back and ask you to marry 
me. Will you have me, Ruth?” 

“ I would if you were not a heretic,” 
was the innocent reply. 

“Oh, as for that matter,” said Malvern, 
laughing, “it is true my family are all 
heretics, but I don’t think I have religion 
enough of any sort to be made a serious 
objection against me.” 

Audley Malvern had just reached that 
age at which we feel disposed to be very 
patronizing towards people a few years 
younger than ourselves. At twenty-one 
he fancied himself quite a patriarch, in 
comparison with , a girl of thirteen, and 
Ruth’s convent training had caused her 
to retain so much of the freshness and 
simplicity of childhood, that she seemed 
to him almost a baby still. They were 
walking along on the railroad track, 
Audley keeping in the centre, and hold- 
ing Ruth by the hand to support her 
while she amused herself by tripping 
along on the iron bars. They had gone 
about three-quarters of a mile from the 
place where they left the train, when 
they came to a low, moist spot, with a 
foot-path running through it parallel to 
the railroad. They descended into this 
path, where it was much more agreeable 
walking than on the dusty track beside 
it. They had not proceeded far, when 
Ruth suddenly releasM her companion’s 
hand, and darted forward, with an excla- 
mation of delight, to pluck a solitary 
flower blooming by the wayside. 

“See, see herel” she cried, triumph- 
antly, displaying her treasure. “ It is 
just like the wild lilies I used to gather 
at home, when mammy took me walking 
on Sunday afternoons.” 

“ Your mammy ?” cried Audley, catch- 
ing at the word. “ I didn’t know you 


MBS. BOTTOMS'S HOTEL, 


11 


little Canadian children had mammies ; 
I thought you called them bonnes," 

Canadian I I’m no Canadian,” an- 
swered Euth, with the air of one resent- 
ing an injury. “I’m a Southerner: I 
was born in Georgia.” 

“Indeed!” and the young officer re- 
garded her with a look of fresh surprise. 

“ Yes ; but I don’t know that I have 
any right to call it home now, for I have 
not been there in a long, long time, — not 
since I was a child.” 

“And how long ago is that?” asked 
Audley, with a smile. 

“ Five years,” she answered, in a tone 
of childish pathos. “ I was just eight 
years old when mamma died, and then 
father carried me away to Mr. Tadpole’s 
school, and I have never been home since. 
I cried very much when they sent me 
away. I was a child then, you know, 
and Uncle Bruen said there was no need 
to hurry about my education ; he thought 
I might wait a year or two at home, but 
father wouldn’t hear to it. I have always 
loved Uncle Bruen for that. He was very 
good to me when I was little, but I dare 
say he has forgotten me now, or maybe 
he is dead, for I have never heard from 
him since I left home, though I wrote 
him three letters without a blot, or a 
word spelt wrong in any one of them. 
Aunt Bruen sent me a Christmas-box 
once, but Mrs. Tadpole took it from me, 
because, she said, sweet things were not 
good for children. She used to give us 
cold bread and hominy with molasses for 
supper, and horrid old peach-pies for a 
treat on Saturdays. I hate pies, and 
I’m sure they can’t be good for children, 
because Annie Barrow’s mother had to 
take her home to keep her from dying 
of dis — pep — peps — some dreadful disease 
with a long, name, that Dr. Sharpe said 
came from eating the wrong things.” 

“And you would have gone home too, 
I suppose, if they had let you?” said 
Malvern, amused at the child’s narra- 
tive. - 

“That I would!” cried Euth, vehe- 
mently. “ It was a dreadful place, and 
Mr. Tadpole was worse even than his 
wife. He used to make us spend the 
whole of Sunday listening to sermons. 
We had to go to church twice a day, and 
at night he would read aloud out of horrid 
good books, and we were punished if we 
went to sleep.” 

“You don’t seem to like sermons and 
good books,” said the young man, smil- 
ing. 

“No, indeed 5 and the prayers were 


worse than the sermons. Whenever any 
of us did anything wrong, Old Slimy 
— we called him that, you know, because 
tadpoles are slimy — would put it down in 
his note-book, and pray for us by name 
the next Sunday at church. It’s dread- 
ful to be prayed for: everybody turns 
round and looks at you ; and then I used 
to think Mr. Tadpole’s prayers were 
granted, too, because things were always 
happening to me there.” 

“Were you punished often?” asked 
Audley. 

“ Oh, yes ; we had to get lessons in 
the Catechism that long,” measuring an 
imaginary column with her fingers, “and 
to learn whole chapters in the Bible by 
heart. I used to be punished oftener 
than the other girls, because JEneas Tad- 
pole was always doing things to make 
me angry. He was a big boy, two years 
older than I, and used to take my books 
from me, and rub out my sums after I 
had done them on my slate, and when I 
cried about it he would call me names. 
I didn’t mind that so much, but some- 
times he would call my poor dead mamma 
names, and then I would say things, and 
he would run and tell his father tales ; 
then old Mr. Tadpole would come and 
lecture me, and tell me I was a child of 
Belial, and there was.no place in heaven 
for the like of me ; and then he would 
make prayers about me next morning 
before the whole school, and tell God how 
bad I was. One day ^neas made faces 
at me while his father was praying, and 
I flung my Bible at his head, and, oh, 
such a storm as there was then !” 

“What did they do to you?” Audley 
inquired, highly amused. 

“ Oh, all sorts of things. I was kept 
a week on bread and water, — that was 
a favorite punishment with Mrs. Tadpole ; 
because she saved by it, — and then I was 
prayed over, every Sunday, for a long 
time, and had to learn a whole chapter 
in the Bible by heart every day. Did 
you ever read the Bible? It’s a dreadful 
book.” 

“ N — 0, I can’t say that I’ve ever read 
it enough to do me any harm,” said Mal- 
vern, with an honest blush at his own 
delinquency. 

“ So, then, you didn’t go to a New Eng- 
land school when you were little!” cried 
the child, reassured by this creditable con- 
fession. “ They made me learn all Chroni- 
cles by heart at Bethel Seminary, and I 
was beginning on Deuteronomy when I 
went to St. Catherine’s.” 

“ And how came you to go there?” 


12 


A FAMILY SECRET. 


I got sick, with a dreadful cough, 
that used to keep me awake all night; 
and the doctors said that unless I went 
to a milder climate I couldn’t live long. 
Then father came, and I thought I was 
going home, but he carried me to Canada 
instead.” 

So this is not the first attempt they 
have made to get rid of you, little one,” 
thought Audley Malvern to himself, eying 
the child with increasing interest as she 
continued her simple narrative. 

‘‘It was warmer there, sure enough,” 
she said ; “ not out-of-doors, you know, 
but the Sisters kept me in a nice warm 
room, and nursed me so kindly, that I 
began to get well before I had been in 
the convent three weeks. They did every- 
thing the doctor said, and gave me nice 
things to eat, and were just as good to 
me as if I had had a mamma to care 
about it, like Annie Barrow. I was not 
put under discipline with the other girls, 
as father directed, because Sister Clelia 
said it was too severe, and would cause 
my death ; and I never had to hear ser- 
mons or read the Bible at all. Sister 
Clelia said it was not a proper book for 
little girls, and gave me the ‘ Lives of the 
Saints’ instead, which I liked a great 
deal better, for it was full of beautiful 
stories, like the fairy-books Annie Bar- 
row used to keep hid in the big garret at 
Bethel.” 

“ What a confounded farce people make 
of religion !” said our hero to himself, with 
a sneer : then he remarked aloud, ‘‘ And 
Father Perline found you at St. Cather- 
ine’s, I suppose?” 

“ Yes ; he was confessor to the nuns. I 
cried and felt very mi-serable when they 
told me I was to see a priest, because I 
thought he was coming to spy me out, 
and tell God tales on me like Mr. Tad- 
pole ; but as soon as I saw him he looked 
so different from the people I used to 
see at Bethel, that I didn’t feel afraid of 
him at all. And then he spoke kindly to 
me and took me on his knee, and when 
he found I had no mother he told me the 
blessed angels took all motherless chil- 
dren under their protection, and that my 
own dear mamma was a glorified saint in 
heaven, and that she would watch over 
and protect me. Before that I had always 
been afraid to think of my poor mamma at 
all, because it seemed as if she was in some 
dark, dreadful place; but now I saw that 
all Mr. Tadpole had been telling me was 
nothing but a wicked falsehood, and after 
that I never felt lonely and desolate, nor 
wished I was dead any more.” 


Audley’ s heart was touched by the 
child’s artless narrative, in spite of the 
religious prejudices with which it was 
crammed. He took her hand in his own, 
and asked, kindly, — 

“ Bo you remember much about your 
mother, my little Kuth?” 

“ Yes ; I remember that she was very 
beautiful and good, and loved me, oh, so 
much ! Nobody has ever cared for me 
since she died except Father Perline. She 
seemed to be always sorry about some- 
thing, and used to cry over me sometimes, 
when no one Avas by, and tell me I was 
like my father; but I don't see,” she 
added, with a slight shudder, “ how that 
could be, because father looks so terrible, 
you know.” 

“Then I’m sure it can’t be,” said Mal- 
vern, smiling, “ for you look anything 
but terrible.” 

The conversation was interrupted at 
this point by their arrival at Mill Creek 
Junction. The aspect of the place was 
by no means inviting. The long line of 
railroad over Avhich they had just trav- 
eled was met here by a branch from the 
South, and in the angle of the great Y, 
formed by their union, stood a dingy 
little wooden depot, with a broad platform 
all around it, upon which the sunbeams 
poured with blinding brightness. A knot 
of idle rustics was gathered at one corner 
of the building screening themselves 
under its projecting eaves, and spitting 
tobacco in lugubrious silence, while await- 
ing the arrival of the train. Some lazy 
mules and a sleepy nag or two were tied 
up in a thicket of small pines near by, 
that served as hostelry to the neighbor- 
hood, while opposite the depot, flanked 
on either side by rows of dirty little 
shops, and unsheltered by a single tree, 
rose one of those characteristic edifices 
whose unpromising exterior but dimly 
foreshadows the inner horrors of an 
American country tavern. A tall post 
stood before the door supporting a very 
small sign-board, on which some ambi- 
tious artist had undertaken to paint the 
word Entertainment in gorgeous capi- 
tals of blue and gold ; but not calculating 
correctly the space at his command, he 
found, when he had blazoned the first 
two syllables, that no room remained for 
the rest of the word, so there was nothing 
for it but to turn over and finish on the 
other side. As Ruth and Audley hap- 
pened to come up on the tainment side of 
the board, they might have been some- 
what perplexed as to the meaning of this 
singular announcement if a burly negro 


MBS. BOTTOMS'S HOTEL, 


13 


fellow had not, just at that moment, ap- 
peared at the front door with a sonorous 
bell in his hand ; at the first tinkle 
whereof various idlers that hung about 
the doors of the shops near by broke and 
made for Mrs. Bottoms’s premises, with 
an alacrity that vividly suggested Aby 
Butler’s derivation of the word “ break- 
fast.” 

Audley Malvern and his little com- 
panion were ushered by the negro bell- 
ringer into a long, low, dingy room, 
whose fly-specked walls were pervaded 
Avith a lingering odor of collards and 
fried bacon. At the head of a long table, 
more bountifully than artistically spread, 
sat a squashy middle-aged woman in a 
soiled cap, whose appearance at once 
proclaimed her, without further intro- 
duction, the landlady of Mrs. Bottoms’s 
hotel. Just behind her chair, and close 
enough to have his ears pinched when- 
ever he began to nod, which happened 
so often as to keep Mrs. Bottoms’s fingers 
in constant practice, stood a little black 
urchin, pulling a string attached to a 
succession of dirty paper flaps suspended 
from the ceiling directly over the table, 
and intended, by their motion, to brush 
away the flies. But the flies of Mrs. 
Bottoms’s household were not to be 
scared by trifles. They were very socia- 
ble flies, and would buzz about your ears, 
roost on your nose, take liberties with 
your bread and butter, and get into your 
coffee regardless alike of Mrs. Bottoms’s 
fly-brushes and your own private ex- 
•fertions. Everything in Mrs. Bottoms’s 
dining-room was fly-specked ; the win- 
doAvs .Avere opaque with the deposits of 
ages ; the table-cloth, the plates, cups, 
the bread and butter, Mrs. Bottoms her- 
self was fly-specked, and from the general 
appearance of things one would have 
said that Mill Creek Junction lay under 
the curse of a perpetual Egyptian plague. 

The two new guests presented a very 
difierent appearance from the usual fre- 
quenters of Mrs. Bottoms’s establishment, 
and Avere immediately conducted by their 
sable guide, with the keen aristocratic in- 
stincts of his race, to the post of honor at 
Mrs. Bottoms's right hand. That lady 
evidently appreciated her viceroy’s dis- 
crimination, and bestowed her attention 
at once upon the strangers. After a cup 
of washy coffee had been served to each, 
Mrs. Bottoms inquired of Buth whether 
she would choose ‘MDiled vittles” or “fried 
vittles” for her breakfast. The child’s 
look of hopeless perplexity brought Mal- 
vern to her assistance, for though equally 


in the dark himself as to the respective 
merits of “ biled vittles” and “fried vit- 
tles,” he had made up his mind what he 
Avould have, and came to the relief of his 
little companion by ordering hard-boiled 
eggs and Irish potatoes roasted in the skin ; 
for these, argued the astute Malvern, will 
at least be clean, — a virtue Avhich the most 
charitable exercise of imagination could 
not impute to anything on Mrs. Bottoms’s 
table. 

In due time the eggs and potatoes mnde 
their appearance,- and our travelers fell 
upon them with the keen relish that long 
abstinence can impart to the plainest fare. 
Ruth had peeled an egg, and Avas in the 
act of carrying it to her lips, Avhen Mrs. 
Bottoms, with overflowing hospitality, 
dipped her fingers into the salt and flung 
a pinch over the child’s plate, exclaiming 
as she did so, — 

“ La, honey, you ain’t got nigh enough 
salt on that aig ; let me fix it for you.” 

As Mrs. Bottoms’s fingers were never 
very daintily kept, and had been applied 
but an instant before to the ear of the 
Ethiopian fly-brusher, their contact did 
not, in Ruth’s estimation, add savor to 
the salt ; but she was too hungry to be 
fastidious, and did not leave the table till 
she and Audley between them had made 
an utter end of the eggs and potatoes. 

After breakfast, RuthAvas consigned to 
the charge of a fat Dinah, whom Mrs. 
Bottoms sent to attend her, while Audley, 
finding small temptation to linger in the 
dingy chamber allotted to him, after 
performing his morning ablutions in a 
cracked earthen basin Avith a fly-specked 
rim, lighted a cigar and strolled out on 
the piazza. For Avant of something better 
to do he occupied himself reading the 
various bills and notices posted on the 
wall, and had disposed of seAwal square 
feet of railroad advertisements, with a 
proportional quantity of phosphates and 
compounds, and new patent cotton-gins, 
when his attention was suddenly arrested 
by the sound of music issuing from the 
tavern parlor. It Avas a grand strain, — • 
the Dona Nobis Pacem^ from Mozart’s 
First Mass, and Audley Avas surprised to 
hear it, in such a place, rendered Avith such 
extraordinary skill. Approaching a win- 
doAv, where he could look into the room 
without being himself observed, he per- 
ceived his little protegee seated before a 
wheezy old piano, from AA^hich, in spite 
of its decrepitude, she contrived, by the 
magic of her touch, to draw exquisite 
melody. 

Audley Avas passionately fond of music, 


14 


A FA.VILF SECRET. 


and though he had never studied it as a 
science, he possessed a correct ear and a 
cultivated taste, which made him an ap- 
preciative listener and a discriminating 
critic. He stood at the window for nearly 
an hour, without growing weary, while 
the child played on, unconscious of his 
presence, unconscious of everything but 
her music. Her execution, though not 
faultless, was very wonderful for so young 
a performer, and Audley noticed that her 
selections were of an elevated, classical 
style, very different from the slap-bang 
that usually pleases the fancy of children. 
He began to wonder if her vocal powers 
corresponded with the genius displayed 
in her touch, and was just debating with 
himself whether he should interrupt her 
by asking for a song, when, as if in answer 
to his thought, she commenced skimming 
over the prelude to various operatic airs, 
and finally selecting the Angelas” from 
Maritana, she burst forth in a clear, ring- 
ing soprano, that astonished the hearer 
by its power and flexibility, as much as 
it charmed him by its sweetness. Enter- 
ing the room softly, he stationed himself, 
unperceived, behind Ruth’s chair, and 
when she reached the closing strain, 
joined her in a fine, strong tenor. The 
child ceased her song and turned abruptly 
round. 

^‘Oh, it’s you, is it?” she cried, clap- 
ping her hands with delight. ‘‘ I am so 
glad.” 

“ You don’t act like it,” he replied, pre- 
tending to be hurt, “ for you stopped sing- 
ing as soon as I joined you.” 

But that was because I didn’t know ; 
I thought no one was listening, and ” 

“ Why, I have been listening for the last 
hour. I don’t wonder now that you want 
to be a prima donna ; you wdll turn down 
Patti and Grisi and Sontag, and the whole 
batch of them, when you take to the boards. 
But come, finish that song for me ; I shall 
never hear it again, my child, as long as 
I live, without thinking of you.” 

But the song was never finished ; there 
came instead the shrill scream of a loco- 
motive, and Father Perline 'appeared at 
the door to announce that it was time to 
prepare for departure. 

“ I will see you aboard,” said Malvern, 
as a long train came thundering up to the 
little wooden depot. It’s an hour or 
more before I shall ge.t off.” 

“ Where are you going?” asked the 
priest. 

“ To California ; by the overland route.’^ 

“ To California I You have got a rough 
time ahead of you.” 


“ Yes ; but we military men” — and 
the venerable ecclesiastic smiled at the 
gravity with which the words fell from 
the youthful lips — ‘‘ are used to roughing 
it •, and then, think of the hunting on the 
plains! I hope it won’t be many weeks 
before I can write home that I have killed 
a buffalo.” 

‘‘Is your home in this State?” asked 
the priest, not sharing young Malvern’s 
enthusiasm about buffalo-hunting. 

“No; I am a Virginian,” replied the 
young man, in the tone in which an an- 
cient Roman might have asserted his citi- 
zenship. “ Malvern is my name, Audley 
Malvern, of Heathmoor but.as the priest 
did not seem particularly impressed by 
this announcement, he did not conde- 
scend to enlighten further the ignorance 
that had never heard of the Malverns of 
Heathmoor, one of the “ first families” of 
the “ Old Dominion.” 

Ruth and her guardian had by this time 
taken their places in the car. Audley 
stood on the platform outside talking Avith 
them till a second blast of the whistle, 
followed by d sudden lunging of the train 
forward, admonished him that it was time 
to make his adieux. 

“Good-by, my little sweetheart,” he 
said, running along on the platform, and 
holding the hand that Ruth extended to 
him through the open window ; “ don’t 
forget me for any of those impertinent 
fellows that will be wanting to make love 
to you when you get to be the most cap- 
tivating of prima donnas T 

“ I will never forget you,” she answered,** 
with artless simplicity. “ I like you bet- 
ter than anybody I know except Father 
Perline.” 

“ Do you, really ? I hope you will 
bear that in mind when you are grown, 
and I come back from California to marry 
you.” 

The train moved away as he spoke, and 
the sweet, childish face was lost in a 
cloud of dense black smoke that came 
streaming backward from the engine. 

“ Poor little Ruth 1” sighed Audley, as 
he stood gazing after the departing train ; 
“there’s a grim bridegroom waiting for 
you.” And a feeling of strange loneliness 
came over him as he sauntered back, sol- 
itary, towards the little taA^ern. 

Months afterward, when news from the 
States first reached the distant outpost at 
which Malvern was quartered, and he 
read in papers six weeks old the fearful 
story of the pestilence that had swept 
over far-off Southern cities, his thoughts 
turned again to the beautiful child whom 


WAITING FOR THE TRAIN 


15 


he had seen, an unconscious Iphigenia, 
calmly moving to her own destruction. 
She was too obscure and insignificant to 
be mentioned by name in the long black 
records of death, but he could not feel a 
doubt as to her fate. lie laid aside his 
paper before he had read it through, and 
went and stood in the door of his tent 
whistling the Angelus,” till interrupted 
by the gentle adjuration of a comrade 
that “ Malvern would stop that infernal 
noise and let a ‘ feller’ go to sleep.” 


CHAPTER II. 

WAITING FOR THE TRAIN. 

Ten years after the events recorded in 
our last chapter, Audley Malvern once 
more crossed the threshold of Mrs. Bot- 
toms’s hotel. It must not be suppos.ed 
that the recollection of his former repast 
at that elegant establishment had lured 
him thither again in quest of a meal. 
Indeed, as he walked up Mrs. Bottoms’s 
front steps on this bleak December after- 
noon, the thought of his former visit 
never once came into his mind, nor was 
there an3^thing, either in his own per- 
turbed state of feeling or in the outward 
appearance of things about him, to recall 
that trifling episode of his career. The 
Mill Creek Junction that now received 
Sim was so different from the quiet little 
country station of ten years ago, that the 
oldest inhabitant scarcely recognized his 
home. True, the material aspect of the 
place was not altered, except with the 
change of seasons, but there was a 
strange bustle and confusion, a hurrying 
to and fro of busy feet, which seemed to 
indicate that Mill Creek Junction had, 
somehow, risen into unwonted import- 
ance : and so, in fact, it had. 

It was towards the close of the great 
civil war, when the lines of railroad 
throughout the South had been so broken 
up by invading armies that no continuous 
system of communication existed between 
the different parts of the shattered Con- 
federacy. It so happened that the short- 
est route across one of the desolated 
districts which interrupted the regular 
lines of travel lay between Mill Creek on 
one side, and a little place called Med- 
w^ay on the other, a distance of about 
one hundred miles, which the traveler 
had to get over as best he might. As the 


whole country between these places had 
been devastated by an invading army 
about two weeks before the date of whicn 
we are writing, neither provisions, horses, 
nor accommodations oi any sort were to 
be obtained without the greatest difficulty. 
Some of the small farmers, whose prop- 
erty lay along the outskirts of what was 
significantly termed by the natives “the 
burnt district,” had, with a keen eye to 
the “main chance,” commenced running 
a line of wagons across the gap, in which 
travelers who were lucky enough to ob- 
tain the precedence could secure seats at 
the moderate charge of about fifty dollars 
a mile, in the paper currency of those 
days. But the number of conveyances 
fell far short of the persons to be accom- 
modated, and the road was always so 
thronged with pedestrians as to appear 
almost like the route of an army on the 
march. 

The wagon-trains did not set out from 
Mill Creek Junction direct, but from a 
place called Mill Creek Bridge, about nine 
miles distant, to which point the railroad 
had been repaired since the passage of 
the invading army. The work, however, 
had been hastily and imperfectly exe- 
cuted, and the new track was in such a 
condition that the light train which plied 
over it daily required from three to four 
hours for each trip, and was always be- 
hind time. It was advertised to connect 
Avith the Western Express, which arrived 
at Mill Creek one hour after noon, but 
when the passengers from the latter had 
alighted, they were informed that they 
would have to wait an indefinite time be- 
fore the little make-shift of a train, on 
which they had to depend, would arrive 
at the station. Some of the more enter- 
prising set off* to walk to the wagons, but 
Audley Malvern was a man who liked to 
take things easy when he could, and as 
the cheery blaze that shone through the 
parlor windows of Mrs. Bottoms’s hotel 
appeared far more inviting than the De- 
cember blast that whistled outside, he 
directed his steps at once towards the hos- 
pitable mansion. 

Ten years have made a great change in 
our hero’s appearance. The handsome, 
boyish face has ripened into a manly 
countenance, which even its extreme 
beauty cannot render effeminate. The 
look of boyish merriment has given place 
to a more thoughtful expression, but 
there still lurks in the dark brown eyes 
a spirit of fun and hardy enjoyment 
that four years of severe trial have not 
been able to subdue. The blue coat and 


IG 


A FAMILY SECRET, 


shoulder-straps have given place to the 
gray and gold of a Confederate dragoon, 
which set off the fine, soldierly figure to 
great advantage. Extensive travel, and 
familiar intercourse with the best society 
of both continents, have cultivated and 
developed to the highest degree the rare 
advantages of person and manner with 
which Malvern was endowed by nature. 

But time has dealt less tenderly with 
the fortunes than with the person of our 
hero. Ilis father’s magnificent estates, 
lying as they did along the banks of the 
Potomac, and almost within gunshot of 
the national capital, were among the very 
first to suffer from the devastations of 
war, and the splendid mansion that 
adorned them was burned by the enemy 
during the winter of ’61. Old Mr. Mal- 
vern, already sinking under the weight 
of years, did not survive the destruction 
of the home that had sheltered his race 
since the good old days when Bunker 
Hill was a name unknown, and Wash- 
ington was yet unborn. Audley was 
thus left, without fortune, and without 
resources, the only support of a mother 
and sister whose tastes and education 
were as little suited to their altered cir- 
cumstances as his own. The elder of his 
two sisters had been married, several 
years before, to a distinguished army 
officer, and after the destruction of their 
home Mrs. Malvern retired, with her 
younger daughter, to a small country 
town near Charleston, where her son-in- 
law was stationed. Audley’ s command, 
throughout the war, had been kept so 
constantly in the field that he had little 
time to bestow upon his family, and for 
the last eighteen months he had been a 
prisoner in the enemy’s lines. He was 
treated with extraordinary rigor, on ac- 
count of some dashing but irregular ex- 
ploit of his, in which he was accused of 
having transgressed the rules of civilized 
warfare. It was with the greatest diffi- 
culty that his release had finally been 
obtained ; his life even, at one time, hav- 
ing been seriously menaced. It is at the 
close of this long imprisonment, after a 
hurried visit to his family, that Audley 
Malvern is again introduced to the 
reader’s notice. 

Ilis position in the army had kept him 
from fully realizing, as yet, the change 
in his fortunes; he lived in the same 
style as his brother officers, and the hard- 
ships he experienced were only the inevi- 
table necessities of war which he shared 
in common with the wealthiest of his 
comrades. He had seen so little of his 


mother and sister during the last four 
years, and they took such pains always 
to write cheerful letters to “poor Aud- 
le}^*’ and to make everything look bright 
and hopeful on his short visits to them, 
that he was never reminded of the neces- 
sity for making any unusual exertions on 
their account, so he lived on, taking 
things as easy as circumstances would 
permit, cherishing a vague intention of 
setting matters right, some day, by marry- 
ing a rich wife, as soon as he could find 
an heiress exactly suited to his mind, — 
an expectation on his part which experi- 
enced fortune-hunters will allow to be not 
a little unreasonable, since the higher 
you set your demands as regards money 
the more you limit your range of choice, 
and the less chance do you stand, in pro- 
portion, of getting anything tolerable in 
the woman herself. 

Audley was extremely fastidious in 
regard to women, and as he had now 
passed the age at which men fall head- 
long and irretrievably in love on small 
provocation, it was no very easy matter 
to make his inclinations and his interests 
coincide. He had commenced paying 
attention to half a score of heiresses in 
succession, with an ultimate view to 
matrimony, but always found some cause 
of disgust, and broke away before matters 
came to a crisis, cursing himself all the 
time for a confounded fool, to let Miss 
Goldsborough’s long nose or Miss Banks’s 
bad spelling stand between him and for- 
tune. 

On the other hand, he had often been 
checked in his attentions to some penni- 
less beauty, just in time to retreat with a 
good grace, by the reflection that he 
could not afford to marry for love alto- 
gether, and then he would wonder why 
the deuce it was a fellow couldn’t find it 
just as easy to fall in love with a rich 
woman as with a poor one. Like all 
soldiers and sailors, and men generally, 
whose profession keeps them much apart 
from women, he gave himself up unre- 
servedly to their society whenever occa- 
sion permitted, and w'ould make love, out 
of hand, to anything in petticoats that 
came in his way. There are some men 
so prone to gallantry that they would 
make love to their great-grandmothers if 
they could find no one else to practice 
upon. These men never mean anything 
in particular by their pretty speeches, 
and do not easily fall seriously in love 
themselves, but they generally possess a 
tender, insinuating manner, that is at- 
tractive to all females, and dangerous to 


WAITING FOR THE TRAIN 


17 


inexperienced ones. They never deliber- 
ately intend to deceive; in fact, they do 
not realize that their protestations will 
not be forgotten by others as readily as 
by themselves, and so they go on, doing 
a great deal of mischief in the world 
unawares. 

Audley Malvern was much given to 
this sort of trifling, and as the world 
judges of our conduct by the results 
rather than by our motives, he had ac- 
quired, without really deserving it, the 
unenviable repiitatiofi of a male flirt. 
Whatever faults he may have possessed, 
no man was ever more innocent of a 
deliberate intention to trifle with women, 
and so far from being the unmitigated 
coxcomb that the judicious reader has, 
doubtless, already pronounced him, half 
his errors were owing to the fact that he 
thought too little of his own fascinations 
of person and manner to calculate upon 
the impression they were likely to make 
upon others. Of course, he could not help 
knowing that he was an uncommonly 
good-looking fellow, and his position as 
an only son and only brother had ren- 
dered his home education a course of un- 
interrupted spoiling, while as the heir of 
a proud name and unliiflited wealth, he 
had experienced all the temptations and 
dangers, as well as the advantages, at- 
tendant upon such a situation. Perhaps 
he had not passed the ordeal unscathed ; 
he had, upon the whole, led a pretty fast 
life of it, and committed a good many 
errors, some of them far from trivial, but 
he had, at bottom, a good heart and a 
generous nature, which no influences of 
education or association could wholly 
pervert. 

Such was Audley Malvern, when, after 
the lapse of a decade, he again set foot 
upon the threshold of Mrs. Bottomses 
hotel. He paused and turned, at the 
entrance, to survey the scene without. 
The train from which he had just alighted 
was still discharging its load of human 
freight, and he was surprised, as he stood 
looking on, to see a lady descend from 
the hindmost car. The journey across 
the burnt district was such a formidable 
enterprise, that no woman would have 
ventured to undertake it except under 
circumstances of extraordinary urgency, 
and the appearance of a delicate-looking 
young person, bound upon such a hazard- 
ous expedition, naturally created surprise, 
the more so as she seemed to be traveling 
alone, and Southern ladies, in those days, 
rarely showed themselves abroad, under 
any circumstances, without a special male 


protector. She did not, however, lack 
for attention on that account, for if there 
is a virtue for which Southern gentlemen 
are eminent above all others, it is their 
deference and attention to unprotected 
females, — especially if the latter are young 
and pretty. To judge by this test, the 
lady in question seemed to be both, for 
she was attended by half a score of Con- 
federate officers, who appeared eager to 
outstrip one another in her service. As' 
she was closely veiled, Audley could not 
pronounce, at once, upon her face and 
features, but he was struck with the grace- 
and elegance of her general appearance. 
Her figure was tall and beautifully pro- 
portioned, advantages which the bright 
plaid shawl she had thrown over her 
shoulders heightened while seeming to- 
conceal. The rest of her dress was un- 
pretending in color and material, but had 
a stylish, fashionable look about it, so- 
diflerent from the make-shift toilets of 
rebel ladies in those days, as to mark its 
wearer at once as having come from 
beyond the blockade. Audley, of course, 
did not observe her toilet in detail, as a: 
woman would have done, but his taste in 
such' matters, like that of most men of 
fashion, was sufficiently cultivated for 
him to know when a woman was well 
dressed, Avithout being able to tell exactly 
Avhat made her so. 

The lady raised her veil for the first 
time as she entered the house, and Aud- 
ley then observed that she was young and 
very handsome, with beautiful blonde 
hair of the pale yellow hue that poets- 
rave about, and great melancholy eyes^ 
whose color he could not define. He- 
touched his hat as she passed, and walked! 
in after her, taking the van of her little- 
corps of attendants, and wondering to-* 
himself hoAv the deuce it had happened' 
that he had managed to ride a hundred 
miles on the same train with a pretty 
woman and never knoAV it, though the 
matter Avas simple enough, if he had only 
reflected that he had been fast asleep all 
the morning, in a different car, Avorn out 
Avith the fatigue of three successive days’ 
travel. 

Many of the passengers had already 
sought refuge under Mrs. Bottoms’s roof, 
and the little parlor was pretty Avell filled, 
when Audley entered in the Avake of the 
fair stranger. The appearance of a lady 
created something of a stir among the 
knot of loungers grouped round the fire. 
Two pair of heels were hastily withdrawn 
from the mantel-piece, and the contents 
of half a dozen pipes emptied on the 


18 


A FAMILY SECRET, 


hearth, while the owners sprang to their 
feet, and proffered chairs to the new- 
comer as liberally as if she had been a 
Mormon harem. As Audley came in im> 
mediately behind her, it was taken for 
granted that he belonged to her in some 
capacity or other, and the person who oc- 
cupied the chair nearest to the one she 
had taken politely tendered it to her sup- 
posed escort, a mistake of which the latter 
did not hesitate to avail himself, as there 
was no other seat in the room vacant, 
and he was never troubled with unneces- 
sary scruples where his personal comfort 
was concerned. 

The cold was unusually severe for a 
Southern winter, and the travelers drew 
their chairs close round the fire. The 
lady seated herself among them with a 
quiet self-possession of manner, as though 
used to contact with strangers and quite 
indifferent to their presence. She placed 
the tips of two dainty little boots upon the 
rug, and, taking off her gloves, held out 
her hands to warm. They were very 
white, and exquisitely shaped, and Aud- 
ley noticed a splendid diamond, that glit- 
tered like a star, on one of her fingers. 
She wore no other ornament, except a 
string of carved ebony beads around her 
neck, — a decoration so fashionable at the 
time, that it would have attracted no at- 
tention but for the exquisite workman- 
ship. 

The presence of a lady threw a certain 
degree of restraint over the men, and no 
one spoke for some time, until at last an 
old gentleman, the only civilian in the 
company, turned to his right-hand neigh- 
bor with some trifling inquiry as to the 
journey before them, and received for his 
consolation the significant reply that the 
best walker was likely to get first to Med- 
way. This was the signal for a chorus 
of questions and answers, and everybody 
had some direful experience to relate, 
either of his own or of some other person 
who had just made the trip, or who had 
seen somebody else that had. The lady 
listened with an expression of increasing 
anxiety, and finally, during a short pause 
in the conversation, she turned to Audley, 
who was sitting nearest her, and asked, 
timidly, if he could tell her whether rail- 
road communication was much interrupted 
beyond Medway. 

“ That depends upon what direction 
you wish to take,” he replied, with a 
slight bow. “ Some of the railroads are 
very much cut up, I believe, even beyond 
that point.” 

“ I am trying to reach my horaie,” the 


lady said, “down in the ‘ piney woods’ 
of Georgia, where it seems hardly proba- 
ble that an invading army would cfire to 
penetrate. Do you know whether the 
road from Medway to South ximbury has 
been disturbed?” 

“ I believe not,” replied Malvern, “ but 
cannot say positively. I am going to 
South Ambury myself, and as we are to 
be fellow-travelers so far, I shall be happy, 
with your permission, to render you any 
assistance in my power during the jour- 
ney. You will find crossing the burnt 
district an arduous undertaking for a 
lady, and this must be my apology for 
the liberty I have taken in offering my 
services.” 

“ I thank you,” said the lady, smiling; 

it is a liberty that needs no apology. 
This is my first experience in traveling 
alone ; indeed, I have not traveled at all 
since I was a child, so that I am very 
ignorant about it, I fear, and shall no 
doubt have frequent occasion to avail my- 
self of your kind offer.” 

“The more frequent the better I shall 
like it,” said Audley, with more sincerity 
than such protestations usually contain. 

Again the lady thanked him, and Aud- 
ley noticed that her voice, which was won- 
derfully soft and musical, had that pecu- 
liar patrician accent which is the most 
unmistakable criterion of high breeding 
and elegant associations. He wanted her 
to say something more, just for the pleas- 
ure of hearing it, but a sudden stop was 
put to all conversation just at this mo- 
ment by the shrill screech of a locomotive, 
and a startling cry of “All aboard !” from 
some one outside, that caused a hasty 
stampede from the little parlor, as the 
travelers snatched up their effects and 
rushed out to secure seats in the train for 
Mill Creek Bridge, which was always 
overcrowded. Audley went with the rest, 
promising to return for the lady when he 
had secured her a seat. It proved, how- 
ever, a false alarm, — merely the train that 
had brought them to Mill Creek switch- 
ing off some cars. 

When Audley came back, he found the 
lady almost alone in the little parlor, 
seated at the rattling old piano that still 
stood in one corner, playing very softly an 
air, the sound of which brought over him 
that strange, ghostly feeling which some- 
times haunts us with a vague impression 
that the experiences of the present mo- 
ment have been known before in some 
other dim far-off world. There is a 
wonderful power of association in sound ; 
he who hears again, after many years, 


WAITING FOR THE TRAIN. 


19 


some old forgotten strain, finds his 
thoughts returning, unbidden, to the 
days when it was caroled fresh and 
clear by lips that are now, perhaps, silent 
forever. Forgotten faces look out upon 
him from the twilight of the past, and 
voices long hushed grow musical again ; 
buried loves, forsaken hopes, vanished 
joys, rise from the graves where the dead 
past had buried its dead, called to life 
once more by the magic power of a 
simple melody; 

Thus it was with Malvern as he stood 
watching the beautiful stranger and 
listening to the old familiar tune she was 
playing. It was the air from Maritana 
that he had heard once before in that 
very room years ago. Every incident 
connected with that old time now flashed 
upon his mind as vividly as if it had 
occurred but yesterday, and he began to 
regard the unconscious musician with a 
strange confused emotion, as if she had 
been a ghost. Something in her look and 
manner seemed unaccountably familiar to 
him, and the longer he watched her the 
more powerful did this impression be- 
come, till at last, with a sudden flash of 
memory, the name, Ruth HarfleUr, broke 
from his lips. The lady did not hear his 
whispered exclamation, but another per- 
son did, and turned his eyes with a fierce, 
startled look towards the speaker. They 
were very remarkable eyes, of a deep 
poetical blue, yet flashing with a wild, 
restless light, strangely out of keeping 
with their celestial hue. 

The owner of these restless orbs was a 
tall, spare man, past the prime of life 
apparently, though there lingered on his 
features such traces of care and conflict 
with passion that it would have been 
hard to say whether time or suffering 
had told most heavily upon him. He 
stood apart in a little recess formed by a 
projecting angle of the chimney, as 
though desirous of avoiding observation, 
but there was something in his appear- 
ance that could not fail to fix the atten- 
tion when once the eyes had been directed 
towards him. Ilis form was still erect in 
all the pride of manhood, and his coun- 
tenance, sere and weather-beaten as it 
was, retained yet traces of extraordinary 
beauty. There were no distinctive traits 
of nationality about him, nor was it 
possible to form, from his dress and ap- 
peai’ance, a probable conjecture as to his 
rank or station in life. These cosmo- 
politan traits, however, would seem to 
indicate that he was not a native 
Southerner, in whom the marks of caste 


and country are always unmistakably 
developed. 

This stranger was regarding the lady 
at the piano, when Audley entered, with 
a look of intense and eager scrutiny that 
nothing could divert, until the involun- 
tary exclamation of the latter caused him 
to fix his gaze for a moment upon the 
young officer. No sooner had he done so 
than Audley, though apparently absorbed 
in contemplating the figure at the piano, 
seemed, by the su])tle magnetism that 
lurks in the eyes, to become aware that 
some one was observing him, and in- 
stantly turned to meet the stranger’s 
gaze. There was something in the eager, 
questioning look of the latter that excited 
his curiosity, but the man, annoyed at 
finding himself an object of attention, 
seemed suddenly to recollect himself, and 
turned abruptly away. At the same mo- 
ment the lady ceased playing, and was 
about to rise from the piano, as the room 
was rapidly filling with men again, when 
Malvern interposed. 

“ Let me entreat you,” he said, bending 
low and looking into her eyes with that 
insinuating glance of his which no woman 
could ever resist, ‘‘ to play that air once 
more. It recalls an incident of ray life 
that memory loves to dwell upon.” 

“ So it does of mine,” answered the 
lady, with a quiet smile, and turned to 
comply with his request. 

He stationed himself behind her as she 
began to play, just as he had stood ten 
years ago behind little Ruth Harfleur, 
and when she reached the closing strain 
sang, in a low, but clear and musical 
voice, the words he had sung there ten 
years before. At the sound of his voice 
the lady suddenly raised her hands from 
the keys, and, turning quickly round, 
their eyes met in a look of mutual recog- 
nition. For several seconds she sat staring 
helplessly into his face’ with a look of 
mingled pleasure and confusion, unable 
to articulate a word. Malvern, never 
surprised or excited at anything, was the 
first to speak. 

“ Have you no word of greeting for an 
old friend, Miss Harfleur?” he said, ex- 
tending his hand, with a cordial smile. 

‘‘ None that will half express my pleas- 
ure at the meeting,” she answered, recov- 
ering herself, and frankly returning his 
salutation. “Why didn’t you tejl me it 
was you at once ?” 

“ Because I had a foolish desire that you 
should recognize me of your own accord.” 

“ And how came you to know me ?’^ 

“ By your music ; don’t you remember 


20 


A FAJ/IZr SECRET. 


my telling you once that I should never 
hear that song again without thinking of 
you? And my memory, you see, is true 
to the instincts of my heart.’’ 

The lady blushed and turned away. 
This man was the hero of her childish 
fancy, and his image had been enshrined 
in her heart for years, with a tenderness 
that she was not conscious of herself until 
she saw him standing there before her. 
Ruth Ilarfleur’s life had been a very bleak 
and desolate one. Exiled from home, she 
knew not why, since her earliest child- 
hood, she had grown up to womanhood 
a lonely, isolated being, her tender heart 
chilled by neglect, and left to feed upon 
its OAvn unclaimed riches. Her convent 
training had kept her apart from men, 
and thus the image of the handsome lieu- 
tenant had lived on in her childish mem- 
ory without a rival. The death of the 
good old priest, the only being in the 
world who had called forth the deep af- 
fection of which her nature was capable, 
had concentrated her thoughts more en- 
tirely upon the only other person who had 
manifested a kindly interest in her, at a 
time when, young as she was, she had 
learned to expect nothing for herself but 
indifference and neglect. At first, in her 
childish simplicity, she had not doubted 
that he would come back and marry her, 
as he said. When she grew older, she 
knew better, but she still identified him 
with the heroes of the few novels she read, 
and dreamed beautiful dreams about the 
time when she should be a famous 
donna and captivate him anew with her 
voice. 

33y and by these visions faded, too, and 
left behind only a sweet and tender mem- 
ory. It was not love, but neither was it 
a very safe feeling with which to encounter 
a man who could so easily change indif- 
ference itself to love, and who laid so little 
stress upon his own conquests, that half 
the time he was not even aware of having 
made them. Had he been a plain, prosaic 
])erson, of ordinary appearance and ad- 
dress, Ruth’s childish visions would have 
faded away like a twilight cloud ; but 
here he vras before her, handsome, grace- 
ful, captivating, beyond all that her ro- 
niantic dreams had painted him, alluding 
tenderly to the past, as though he, too, 
had cherished the memory of it as a pre- 
cious thing. She had too little knowledge 
of men to suspect that he might do that 
just the same, tliough he had never once 
thought of her in all these years, and 
would probably never think of her again 
if they were to part to-morrow. Their 


conversation was carried on in a low tone, 
to avoid attracting the attention of the 
other travelers, which, added to a certain 
deferential tenderness that always charac- 
terized Malvern’s manner with women, 
made his most trifling compliments seem 
almost like a declaration of love. Miss 
Ilarfleur felt an embarrassment in the 
silence that succeeded his last remark, 
and resumed the conversation at hazard, 
by wondering if they would ever have 
recognized each other without the music. 

“ Yes,” answered Audley, decisively, 
“I am sure I would have made you out 
sooner or later *, there are some things 
about you that can never change.” 

“ If you were a woman,” she replied, 
smiling, “I might feel constrained to say 
the same of you, but as ten years do not 
make such a fearful stride in a man’s life, 
I suppose I need not feel afraid to confess 
that I think you are much altered ; indeed, 
I should never have recognized you from 
your looks alone.” And she glanced at 
the heavy moustache and whiskers, and 
the hardy, sunburned hue that had re- 
placed the boyish bloom of twenty-two. 
The handsome colonel was fully aware 
that the change was not to his detriment, 
though he had the grace not to betray the 
flattering consciousness. 

I am sorry to hear you say that,’^ he 
answered, with a light laugh, “ for you 
seemed to like me as I was ; do you re- 
member what you promised me when we 
parted? And I am a colonel now,” he 
added, playfully stroking the decorations 
on his collar. 

“ Yes •, but I was to be a famous prima 
donna^ you know, and I am only plain 
Ruth Ilarfleur.” 

She uttered the words in a tone of sad- 
ness, as though some painful chord had 
been touched. Audley, with a w^ell-bred 
desire for avoiding unpleasant subjects, 
undertook to give the conversation a dif- 
ferent turn by inquiring after her guar- 
dian, Father Perline. The allusion was 
an unfortunate one for his purpose ; the 
lady’s brow became more clouded, and her 
voice assumed a deeper sadness, as she re- 
plied, — 

“ lie is dead ; died of yellow fever the 
summer of the great pestilence, but not 
until he had carried peace and consolation 
to thousands of perishing souls.” 

Do you know,” said Audley, regarding 
her attentively, “ that I thought of you 
only as dead after I saw you depart with 
Father Perline on your perilous journey ? 
Your escape seems almost a miracle.” 

“I did not escape altogether,” she an- 


A LADY SllO^rS HER RING. 


21 


swered. I was seized with the fever three 
days after our arrival in New Orleans; 
])iit I aot over it, and then Father Perline 
carried me about with him to nurse the 
sick. So many people had died, or gone 
away, that they were glad to get even a 
child to help take care of the sick. Some- 
times I was left in charge of a whole 
family, and often there would be no one 
but me to close the eyes of the dead. I 
dreaded it very much at first, but death 
v/as so thick around me that I soon grew 
fixrniliar with it. I was called the ‘ Little 
Nun,’ ‘ Saint Ruth,’ the ‘ Angel of .Death,’ 
and other names that the poorer classes 
in New Orleans remember to this day.’’ 

“ Those were dreadful experiences for a 
child,” said Malvern, regarding her with 
a look of wondering admiration. You 
began early the work of a Sister 6f Char- 
ity ; how comes it they didn’t make a nun 
of you ?” 

I never meant to be a nun,” she an- 
swered, decisively, “and no one except 
my father cared to put any constraint upon 
my inclinations. I always intended to be 
an opera-singer, and studied under Violini 
for the stage, Ibut my father interfered ; 
and I suppose it is right to obey one’s 
father,” she added, with a sigh that proved 
obedience in this case to have been an act 
of duty, not of love. 

“ After the surrender of the city,” she 
continued, “ the convent of St. Sacrament 
was suppressed on account of the rebel 
proclivities of the inmates, and as I had 
no other home, there was nothing left for 
me but to make the best of my way back 
to my father’s house.” 

The tone of bitterness wdth which the 
words were uttered did not escape Mal- 
vern. He remembered the artless tale of 
neglect and cruelty her childish lips had 
unfolded years before, and wondered if 
the dark suspicion which then haunted 
his mind had really any foundation in 
fact. He had no time, however, to pur- 
sue his reflections on this subject, for just 
as Miss Harfleur finished speaking the 
shriek of an approaching locomotive in- 
spired fresh hopes of departure, and sent 
the impatient travelers hurrying once 
more towards the depot. 


CHAPTER III. 

A LADY snows HER RING. 

It was no false alarm this time. A 
rumbling old locomotive, very much out 


of joint, to which were attached three 
dilapidated boxes and a used-up passen- 
ger-car, steamed slowly up to the low, 
wooden depot, and stood puffing like an 
asthmatic alderman, while the people in- 
side scrambled out to make way for the 
people outside who were scrambling in. 
The crazy passenger-car, though reserved 
with much formality as a first-class coach, 
really possessed very questionable advan- 
tages over the rude boxes into which the 
rank and file of creation were allowed to 
tumble themselves at pleasure. The win- 
dows were all broken out, and for seats 
the only choice was betAveen benches 
without backs and benches without bot- 
toms. Audley selected one of the former, 
and, having deposited his companion, 
went out to see after the baggage. On 
his return he noticed that the stranger 
Avho had attracted his attention in Mrs. 
Bottoms’s parlor had taken a seat facing 
Miss Harfleur, on the opposite side of the 
car, and was regarding her with a look 
of rapt attention. Ruth was busied in 
pinning a corner of her shawl over the 
broken pane at her side, through Avhich 
the December blast came pouring in, a 
chilling reminder of the wintry storm 
breAving outside. 

She had taken off her gloves, the bet- 
ter to accomplish this impromptu up- 
holstery, and the diamond on her finger 
glittered like a star in the dusky tAvilight 
that pervaded the car. Audley observed 
that the man’s attention seemed now spe- 
ciall}^ directed toAvards this jeAvel, which 
he noted Avith a scrutiny that might nat- 
urally, under the circumstances, excite 
suspicion. He turned away uneasily on 
encountering Malvern’s gaze a second 
time, and, opening a neAvspaper, kept his 
eyes fixed upon it Avith studied reserve 
until interrupted by the inspection of 
passports. 

This ceremony was conducted Avith 
becoming solemnity by a Avooden-legged 
conscript, accompanied by a smair boy 
Avith a gun, styled respectively the In- 
spector and the Guard. As Audley had 
forgotten to proAude himself Avith pass- 
ports on leaving Richmond, the appear- 
ance of these formidable officials caused 
him at first some uneasiness, but, observ- 
ing that they examined Miss Harfleur’ s 
passport upside down, he boldly pro- 
duced, in place of his own, an unre- 
ceipted tailor’s bill, Avhich was duly 
inspected, and returned Avith the usual 
formula, “All right, sir.’^ 

The stranger’s turn came next. He 
produced the required document, and 


22 


A FAMILY SECRET. 


gave it to the inspector without raising 
his eyes from the newspaper behind 
which he had taken refuge from Audley 
Malvern’s gaze. There was something 
in his aspect which seemed to excite the 
suspicion of the illiterate official, ‘who, 
whatever ma}^ hav^ been his deficiencies 
in other respects, was endowed in an 
ample degree with that keen instinct of 
nationality by which Southern Ameri- 
cans seem able to detect, under any dis- 
guise, one who is not of the chosen 
people.” Such a suspicion was of grave 
consequence in those days, when the 
words ‘‘foreigner” and “enemy” were 
almost synonymous to a people upon 
whom the whole world looked askance. 
The inspector accordingly scrutinized 
the passport of the stranger wdth special 
care : that is, he turned it on both sides ; 
looked at it with first one eye shut, then 
the other; held it up to the light; felt 
the paper cautiously, as though it might 
be explosive ; then handed it to the 
guard, who, making nothing of it, gave 
it back to the inspector, and finally, as 
no evidences of treason or conspiracy 
could' be got oilt of the document, it was 
returned without comment to the owner. 

Colonel Malvern watched this little 
pantomime with much amusement, and, 
during the evolutions of the paper in the 
hands of the officials, saw enough of its 
contents to advise him that the stranger 
had come from New Orleans, by flag of 
truce, — a fact Avhich, Audley thought, 
might possibly account for the peculiar 
interest with which he seemed to regard 
Miss Harfleur, she having just come 
from the same place. 

“ Have you ever seen that person be- 
fore?” he asked her, a little abruptly, in- 
dicating by a gesture whom he meant. 

Ruth threw a careless glance towards 
the man, and answered, — 

“ No ; never. I think he was on the 
train that brought us to Mill Creek, but 
I didn’t notice him particularly. Why 
do you ask?” 

“ Because his passport states that he is 
from New Orleans, and I have seen him 
once or twice looking very hard at you, 
with an expression of deeper interest 
than a mere stranger would be likely to 
exhibit.” 

“ No,” Ruth repeated, taking a second 
and more leisurely survey of the stranger, 
who kept his eyes studiously averted, “ I 
am very certain that I never saw him in 
New Orleans, for he has a face one would 
not be likely to forget.” 

“ Do you think it a handsome one?” 


“No, not exactly. What do you think 
of it?” 

“ It is a very remarkable face, and, I 
might have added, rather a fine one, if I 
had not caught him eying that hand- 
some ring of yours, just now, in a very 
suspicious manner.” 

“ There are some singular circum- 
stances connected with this ring,” said 
Miss Harfleur, drawing the jewel slowly 
from her finger and placing it in Mal- 
vern’s hand, “ that make me regard it 
almost with suspicion myself. Read the 
inscription inside.” 

Audley did as she requested. 

“ I see your name engraved here,” he 
said, “but there is nothing very singular 
in that, is there?” 

“ If you notice more carefully,” re- 
plied his companion, “you will see that 
the engraver meant no allusion to me, 
and it is only by a strange coincidence 
that the inscription happens to contain 
my name.” 

Audley held the ring up to the light 
and examined it closely. 

“ Yes, I see now,” he said. ‘‘ The in- 
scription is old and indistinct, so that I 
did not read it all at first. A Bible 
reference, is it not?” he added, as he 
deciphered more fully the engraving, 
which was simply this, — 

rtR i 16, 17, 

in old Roman characters. 

“ Yes.” And Miss Harfleur repeated 
the beautiful words of Ruth to Naomi. 
“ It is very strange,” she added, musingly, 
as she received the ring from him again 
and slipped it back upon her finger. 

“ Not at all,” replied Malvern, smiling ; 
“ on the contrary, it seems to me very 
natural that one should say those words 
to you.” 

“ But it is strange,” she continued, 
coloring slightly in reply to his compli- 
ment, “that I should receive a ring bear- 
ing such an inscription in the way that I 
received this. It was thrown to me in a 
bouquet the night before my departure 
from New Orleans, at Avhich time I made 
my first and only appearance on the 
stage as a professional singer. The great 
operatic star. Sonata, had come over from 
Havana, and was to appear in ‘ La Fille 
du Regiment.’ The bills were posted, 
notices were out in all the morning 
papers, and there w\as tremendous excite- 
ment throughout the city over the re- 
opening of the opera-house, when, at the 
eleventh hour, the prima donna was 


A LADY SHOWS HER RING. 


23 


seized with a sudden and violent illness, 
which made it impossible for her to sing 
that night. The manager and performers 
were in the utmost consternation, until 
Signor Tognio, leader of the orchestra, 
who had frequently assisted in the Cathe- 
dral choir, where I was employed as 
chief soprano, bethought himself of me. 
I knew the principal role of nearly all 
the grand operas, and he had often com- 
plimented my rendering of certain parts 
of ‘ La Fille du Regiment.’ So, after 
consulting with Sonata and my old in- 
structor, Violini, they settled it among 
them that I was to take the place of the 
prima donna. I refused at first, because 
my father had positively forbidden my 
ever appearing on the stage, but they in- 
sisted that there could lae no harm in 
doing it just this once under the shield 
of an inviolable incognito. Most of my 
acquaintance had left the city before the 
surrender, and as Sonata and I were 
somewhat alike in general appearance, it 
was hardly probable that the fraud would 
ever be detected, and if it should leak 
out, by any accident, they all promised 
me, on their oaths, never to reveal who 
had acted the part of the real Sonata. I 
was under many obligations to Violini, 
which made it hard to refuse an urgent 
request of his, still, I felt serious doubts 
as to my capacity for sustaining the 
character of so celebrated a songstress. 
The praises of the two men, however, 
together with the assurances of Sonata 
herself, finally satisfied me on that score. 
I am mortal, and therefore can be 
flattered. I am a woman, and therefore 
can be persuaded ; and so the end of it 
all was that I actually did appear as 
Sonata in the role of La Vivandiere^ and 
was received with storms of applause, 
which I attributed to the reputation of 
that glorious artiste. After that martial 
air ‘ Search Through the Wide World,’ I 
was all but smothered under bouquets 
thrown upon the stage, in one of which I 
found this ring. I carried it to Sonata 
after the performance, thinking of course 
it had been intended for her, but she de- 
clined the trophy, generously declaring 
that I was entitled to both the honors and 
profits of the evening. I did not discover 
the inscription until next day, when I ex- 
amined the ring more closely ; and it has 
been a puzzle and a mystery to me ever 
since.” 

“ Why, you must have had admirers 
and lovers enough to account for any- 
thing of that sort,” said Audley, with a 
laugh. “ Think now, and confess honestly. 


was there not some one among all the poor 
fellows you left behind in New Orleans 
who would be likely to bestow upon you 
such a testimonial of his appreciation?” 

Miss Harfleur shook her head. ‘‘ Life 
in a convent does not afford many oppor- 
tunities for attracting lovers,” she an- 
swered. “ I never saw any men but 
priests and my music-masters, and I do 
not think any of them would have cared 
to pelt me with diamonds. Besides, this 
antique jewel has every appearance of 
being some old family relic. Observe the 
setting, it cannot be less than half a 
century old, and the engraving how worn 
it is. But why should the owner have 
parted with it? And then the coincidence 
of the name, — there are the mysteries. 
No one in all that assembly could possi- 
bly know that I was called Ruth.” 

Audley himself had an unromantic 
suspicion that the ring was the property 
of some aristocratic OrUanoise^ which 
had fallen into the hands of “ bummers” 
after the surrender of the city, and that 
it had been flung at the feet of the 
beautiful songstress, in a sudden trans- 
port of enthusiasm, by some vagabond 
who could easily afford to be generous 
with what had cost him nothing. He 
did not, however, hint this prosaic but 
highly probable solution of the mystery 
to his companion, as it would only destroy 
her respect for and pleasure in the trophy 
without giving any clue to the rightful 
OAvner. 

The foregoing conversation had been 
carried on in an undertone, which the 
rumbling of the train rendered inaudible 
to all but the parties engaged. The dif- 
ficulty of keeping their seats, OAving to 
the faultiness of the track, which noAV 
sent the cars careening from side to side, 
like a ship in a storm, and noAV tumbled 
the passengers pell-mell into one another’s 
laps as the whole train Avas stopped Avith 
a sudden jerk by a broken cross-tie or a 
sunken sleeper, put an end to further 
discourse, and the next five or six miles 
were traversed in most unsocial silence, 
while the cumbersome train floundered 
on its way OA^er the half-sunken rails. 

The brief December day had already 
draAvn to a close when Mill Creek Bridge 
Avas signaled from the engine, and the 
wintry clouds that had been slowly gath- 
ering since morning were noAV rolling in 
billowy, black masses OAwhead, deepen- 
ing the gloom of a moonless night into 
almost Cimmerian darkness. Miss Ilar- 
fleur clung to her companion’s arm with 
a feeling of mingled awe and alarm as 


24 


A FAMILY SECRET. 


she emerged from the dim and cheerless 
car into the still more dim and cheerless 
night. The wildness and novelty of the 
scene around her were well calculated to 
excite both the fears and the fancy of one 
bred in the quiet seclusion of a convent, 
and accustomed to vievr the outside world 
only in the artificial life of a great city. 
Here, no habitation of any kind was to 
be seen, save a rude log hut, built there 
as a temporary shelter for workmen em- 
ployed on the railroad. Round a small 
clearing, just in front of this shanty, 
which was flanked on one side by a 
towering forest, and on the other by a 
d?eep ravine, through which the swollen 
waters of Mill Creek were rushing Avith 
a tumultuous roar, was ranged a line of 
carts and vragons waiting to receive the 
passengers from Mill Creek Junction 
and convey them to a neighboring village, 
rejoicing in the lofty name of Palmyra, 
where they were to pass the night. Large 
fires, blazing in front of the cabin, shed 
a weird glare over the surrounding space, 
and over the motley company gathered 
round them. Negro drivers were hurry- 
ing to and fro, flourishing their whips, 
and hallooing to their teams, with an air 
of busy importance ; while knots of sol- 
diers were grouped about the fires, pre- 
paring for a night’s bivouac, or snatching 
a hasty meal before departing on their 
march to Palmyra. Now and then the 
gilded trappings of some starred and 
belted officer would flash like a meteor on 
the night, as he hurried from point to 
point, issuing commands, or paused a 
moment in the light to enjoy the genial 
warmth of the flames ; but oftener did 
the impartial blaze reveal only rags and 
scars, and grimy cheeks, as the weary 
veteran flung down his knapsack, and 
stretched himself on the ground to bask 
in the cheery fire-light. The rising wind 
howled dismally through the forest, while 
ever and anon low mutterings of distant 
thunder sounded ominously on the night 
causing many an upturned eye to glance 
uneasily at the lowering canopy overhead, 
which seemed to grow blacker and heavier 
every instant. Audley’s life had made 
him familiar with such scenes, and he 
was in no way moved by them, but he 
felt the little hand on his arm tremble 
violently, and saw the dark, melancholy 
eyes turned with a half-frightened, half- 
questioning look to his own. 

“Don’t be alarmed,” he said, gently, 
ansAvering the mute appeal, and draAving 
Ruth’s Avrappings more closely about her. 
“You will find our new mode of travel 


Axry rough, I am afraid, and the presence 
of so many rude soldiers is not calculated 
to add to its attractiveness, but never 
mind them ; only be as blind and deaf as 
you can, and if you should happen to 
hear or see something a little uncouth 
noAV and then, attribute it to inadvertence 
on their part, for Avild and reckless as 
they seem, I am convinced that not one 
of these poor devils would intentionally 
be Avanting in the respect due to a lady.” 

The justice of Audley’s remark Avas 
immediately verified, for as he led his 
companion to the fire the laughter and 
loud talk instantly subsided, while the 
group around it made way, respectfully, 
for the lady. One burly fellow, with bare 
feet and a ragged shirt, spread his blan- 
ket, with the gallantry of a Raleigh, 
under her feet, Avhile others piled up 
sticks of Avood and flung their coats over 
them to make a seat for her. Some 
officers standing near invited the neAv^- 
comers to partake of a hot punch they 
had just prepared, and a tall Georgia 
major, in a tremendous overcoat and top 
boots, politely offered to take charge of 
the colonel’s wife Avhile the latter went 
to secure a conveyance. Audley observed 
the crimson flush that this mistake 
brought to the lady’s cheek, and hastened 
to correct it. 

“ AYith your permission. Miss Ilar- 
fleur,” he said, bowing his thanks to the 
major, “ I will leave you for a feAV min- 
utes to the care of this gentleman, Avhile 
I go and see Avhat are the chances for 
continuing our journey and with that 
he directed his steps towards the line of 
Avagons in the background. 

It Avas no easy matter to obtain a 
conveyance. Several wagons had been 
forcibly seized and driven off by hiAvless 
soldiers, and those that remained were 
already filled. As soon as it was known, 
however, that the colonel had a lady 
under his charge the other travelers held 
back, and alloAved him first choice of 
places. After hastily inspecting the mot- 
ley train, he selected a strong plantation 
Avagon, drawn by a stout six-mule team. 
There Avere some eight or ten men seated 
in it, but they readily made way for the 
lady, and assisted Malvern in arranging 
a comfortable niche for her in the rear, 
Avhere she Avas snugly disposed on a pile 
of fodder, with water-proofs tucked around 
her, and a large traveling-trunk placed as 
a screen between her and the crowd of 
men sitting forward. iVudley sat him- 
self doAvn beside her, and the herculean 
major, to whose care she had been tern- 


A LADY SHOWS HER RING, 


25 


porarily consigned, proceeded to climb in 
after, with two of his subalterns, despite 
the protest of the driver, a very black 
old darkey, who rejoiced in the cheerful 
appellation of Uncle Grief. 

At last all was ready, and the long 
train of w^agons began to move slowdy 
forward, accompanied by a line of pedes- 
trians who flanked it in t^vo files on either 
side of the road. The motley procession 
was lighted on its way by torches of 
blazing pine, borne aloft % the negro 
guides, and producing a most picturesque 
effect, as they revealed the lengthened 
train winding its way laboriously over 
the miry road, and lighted the grim wintry 
landscape with their lurid glare, now 
flashing upon silent pools filled by the 
wdnter rains, now" glancing upon some 
fantastic human figure, and bringing it 
into bold relief against the dark back- 
ground of forest that flanked the w'ay on 
either hand. The trees met in a rude 
arch overhead, lacing their great black- 
ened arms together, and smiting and 
clashing them in the wind like giants in 
a battle. Accustomed as he was to a life 
of adventure and excitement, Audley 
could not help feeling impressed with the 
wild grandeur of the scene, w"hile Ruth, 
forgetting all her first alarm, flung aside 
the w"rappings that enveloped her, the 
better to survey a picture so exciting to 
her poetical fancy. Audley rose and stood 
beside her, making her rest on his arm to 
guard against being throw"n from her feet 
by the sudden thumps and jolts that 
scarcely suffered her to maintain her 
balance, even wdth the aid of such a sup- 
port. 

“ I thought you would be frightened,’' 
he said, encouragingly, “ but you stand 
,it all like a heroine, t really believe you 
are beginning to enjoy this wild way of 
traveling.^’ 

“ Yes,” she replied, ‘‘ I do like it now, 
though I felt a little frightened at first. 
I have all my life been longing for ad- 
ventures of some sort, and this suits me 
better than the monotonous routine of a 
convent. I would never make a saint, I 
fear.” 

‘^But you would suit exactly for a 
soldier’s wife,” he whispered, wdth a low 
laugh. 

Ruth made no reply, for at that mo- 
ment some veterans in the van struck up 
a favorite w’ar song, and the strain was 
echoed from group to group until the 
w"hole caravan joined, as one man, in a 
chorus that made the very heavens ring. 
The crude effusions that made up a great 


part of the heroic literature of those days, 
and that only bring a smile, perhaps, to 
the lips of the stranger, w^ere full of poetic 
fire to the people whose burning hearts 
^ound utterance in them, and, like the 
good old Methodist revival songs in which 
skeptics and w'orldlings see only a subject 
for scoffing, had something about them, 
wdien chanted by thousands of singers 
w"hose souls w^ere on their lips, that could 
not fail to fire every tongue and inspire 
every heart. 

Ruth listened awdiile in silence, then, 
carried aw"ay by the ecstasy of the mo- 
ment, she opened her lips and threw the 
whole power of her magnificent voice into 
the song. Audley, w"ho had joined in the 
chorus, ceased singing before she had 
sounded half a dozen notes, and gave 
himself up to the delight of listening. 
He had heard all the famous priina 
donnas of the day, from the elder Patti 
dow"n to Piccolomini, but never before 
had the power of any human voice so im- 
pressed him. Ilis enthusiasm was sud- 
denly cooled, however, by the actual burst- 
ing, just at this moment, of the storm that 
had been gathering so long. A few- warn- 
ing drops, accompanied by an admonitory 
peal of thunder, sent all who were fortu- 
nate enough to possess such means of 
protection cow'ering under their blankets 
and w"ater-proofs, while those w"ho had 
none soon found only too good reason to 
lament their deficiency. 

The big rain-drops fell slowly at first, 
then gradually came faster and thicker, 
till they fell in torrents that extinguished 
the torches, and converted the road into 
a miry lagoon, through wdiich men and 
beasts had to plow their way wdth infi- 
nite toil. All was now a scene of in- 
describable confusion. The negro drivers 
had been unceremoniously dismounted to 
make way for more aristocratic w^ayfarers, 
tired of their long march through the 
mud. Uncle Grief had been degraded 
with the rest, and, as the doughty young 
captain who held the reins in his stead 
was entirely ignorant of the road, our 
friends were in no little danger of getting 
their necks broken. Occasional flashes of 
the pale sheet-lightning that frequently 
accompanies winter storms at the South 
would reveal dangerous pits and gullies, 
on the very brink of which they Avere 
recklessly driving, while more than once 
they were nearly upset by running against 
the trunks of fallen trees that the wind 
had blown across the road, or over stumps 
that their amateur postilion ran foul of 
by getting out of it. The grinding of the 


26 


A FAMILY SECRET. 


heavy wagon-wheels through the mud, 
the ceaseless plash of the horses’ feet on 
the deluged highway, the roaring of the 
wind and patter of the rain, mingled with 
the cries of the guides and teamsters, made 
a strange confusion of sounds, heightened 
now and then by hot vociferations and 
angry dialogues among the discontented 
pedestrians belonging to the train. “ Hal- 
loo, all in the mud!” “D — n these in- 
fernal roads, a fellow can’t keep his feet 
on ’em !” “ Go to the devil, you black 

rascal ! why didn’t you tell me that mud- 
hole was there?” And Cuffee, choking 
with suppressed laughter as the discom- 
fitted son of Mars shook himself out of 
the mire, would stammer forth his defense : 
“Lord ’a mercy, massa, how you ’spec a 
poor nigger for keep you outen de mud 
when dar ain’t nuffin but mud every whar, 
an’ him can’t keep hissef out?” 

Such were dhe sounds that constantly 
reached Miss Ilarfleur’s ear, though never 
intended for a lady to hear. The darkness 
and confusion increased at every step, and 
the classic walls of Palmyra seemed to 
recede as the travelers advanced, so slow 
was the progress made. At last, when 
the patience of all was nearly exhausted, 
and the Georgia major had just finished 
blowing up the innocent guides for the 
twentieth time because Palmyra was not 
at hand, a sudden turn in the road re- 
vealed the lights of the village glimmering 
in the distance, and revived hope in the 
sinking hearts of men and beasts. The 
weary mules were urged to their utmost 
speed, and in a few minutes more the 
whole caravan was rolling through the 
streets of the little hamlet that bore at 
least one point of resemblance to its his- 
toric namesake in the ruin and desolation 
that had come upon both. It was a very 
small village, containing not more than a 
dozen houses, scarcely one-third of which 
were now habitable. The only inn, bear- 
ing the ambitious title of the ‘‘Indian 
Queen Hotel,” had been partially de- 
stroyed by bombs. But two rooms were 
fit for occupancy, and in one of these the 
only son of the landlady, a poor widow 
whose husband had fallen at Chicka- 
mauga, lay ill with the measles. Yet, a 
shelter of some sort must be had, for the 
fury of the storm went on increasing 
every instant*, besides, it was now past 
ten o’clock, and Uncle Grief declared that 
his mules were too tired “ to go a step 
furder ef Saturn hissef was a drivin’ 
’em,” — a statement which it needed but 
a glance at the poor beasts to confirm. 
There was nothing for it, accordingly, 


but to ijiake the best of such accommoda- 
tions as offered, and trust to Providence 
and free ventilation for security from in- 
fection. The first-class passengers, there- 
fore, installed themselves at the Indian 
Queen, while the teamsters and common 
soldiers packed off to bivouac among the 
ruins, wherever they could find the re- 
mains of a roof or a wall to afford them 
shelter from the storm. 

A cheerful fire was blazing on the 
parlor hearth of the dilapidated Indian 
Queen, when Colonel Malvern entered 
with Miss Harfleur, that lighted up the 
blackened walls, and gave to the other- 
wise comfortless apartment an almost in- 
viting aspect. Some of the other travelers 
had preceded them, and the roaring chim- 
ney was enveloped in a cloud of steam 
that issued from their dripping garments. 
Miss Harfleur’ s water-proofs had protected 
her so well that her clothing was scarcely 
damp *, but the circle round the fire in- 
sisted that she should join them, and a 
warm nook was prepared for her in the 
chimney corner, and a seat beside her own 
i*esigned to her escort. 

Meanwhile, the major, who had estab- 
lished himself caterer to the company, 
began to inquire into their chances for 
getting supper. Mrs. Hanner, the land- 
lady, had nothing to offer, and was her- 
self living upon the soldier’s rations al- 
lowed her son by the Government ; but 
there happened to be a small supply-train 
with commissary stores for the army 
camped in the tavern yard, and upon 
these the major began to forage. As he 
was himself an officer in the commissary 
department, he could make some show of 
authority for his act, but even without 
that, the small guard attached to the train 
was too weak to protect it from the band 
of hungry travelers the major could bring 
to his assistance. 

Colonel Malvern’s servant, Archie, who 
had learned to serve his master in every 
capacity during their many wanderings, 
was installed as cook, an office which he 
discharged very creditably considering 
the materials at his command ; and when 
people are very hungry, warm hoe-cake 
and bacon broiled on the coals are not 
such unpalatable diet as an epicure might 
suppose. To complete the feast, Miss 
Harfleur remembered that she had several 
packages of chocolate in her trunk, which 
she offered to prepare for the benefit of 
her fellow-travelers, if Mrs. Hanner could 
furnish anything to boil it in. That ex- 
cellent lady, accordingly, produced from 
the wreck of her kitchen a stout hominy- 


A LADY SHOWS HER RING. 


27 


pot, which she declared was the onjy thins; 
she had left “ fitten to bile vittles in,” and 
with this rude utensil and a little con- 
densed milk, appropriated from the Gov- 
ernment stores, Archie prepared, under 
Miss Ilarfleur's directions, a beverage that 
seemed to the wet and weary travelers 
like a draught of Olympian nectar. 

The utmost cordiality and good humor 
now prevailed. The party at the Indian 
Queen had become so well acquainted with 
one another by this time, and the circum- 
stances under which they were thrown to- 
gether were so well calculated to banish 
everything like constraint and formality, 
that this hap-hazard company assumed 
spontaneously the bearing of invited 
guests in a private drawing-room ; and 
Miss Ilarfleur’s position seemed more like 
that of the belle of a fashionable assembly 
than of an unprotected wanderer cast by 
chance among a crowd of strange men. 
There was one, and only one, who seemed 
not to share in the general feeling of good- 
fellowship : the man with the strange fiery 
blue eyes sat apart, moody and alone, all 
the evening, eating very little, and speak- 
ing not at all. 

In any other country than our own, 
Miss Ilarfleur's position would have been 
unspeakably awkward, not to say equivo- 
cal, and her reputation would probably 
suffer for it afterwards ; but in our less 
artificial state of society, manners are 
freer in proportion as morals are purer, 
and young women are not hedged in with 
such rigid conventional barriers, because 
their habitual virtue and the deference 
which men pay to it make other protection 
unnecessary. Every Southern woman 
knows that so long as she conducts her- 
self like a lady she will receive from her 
countrymen the treatment due to one, un- 
der whatever circumstances she may be 
placed ; and, indeed, all the world over, I 
think, men are generally quite ready to 
recognize the worth of modesty anti refine- 
ment in women. Miss Ilarfleur’s present 
situation was certainly not one in which a 
lady would voluntarily place herself in 
any land, but while she regretted it, and 
was keenly alive to its awkwardness, as 
any woman of delicacy could not but be, 
she was beset by none of those scruples 
of false delicacy that would have haunted 
any woman but an American in the like 
predicament. Young, beautiful, alone at 
night in a crowd of strange men, with no 
protector but a young and handsome col- 
onel of dragoons, whose presence of itself 
would have been compromising in any 
other country, a French or an English 


girl would have felt her reputation for- 
ever gone ; but in our purer state of so- 
ciety women have not yet learned to 
regard their natural protectors only as 
possible seducers and betrayers. Miss 
Ilarfleur knew that her presence alone 
was a sufficient guarantee for the good 
behavior of every man who was admitted 
under the same roof that sheltered her. 
So far from being unprotected, every moth- 
er’s son there felt himself her champion, 
and the least attempt at insolence or rude- 
ness would have been the death-warrant 
of the offender. 

It was past midnight when the supper 
was disposed of, for the reader must re- 
member that it not only had to be cooked 
and eaten but foraged for. The guests 
of the Indian Queen now began to be 
painfully sensible of its lack of, sleeping- 
accommodations. One by one they sank 
overcome by slumber, some nodding in 
their chairs, some propping themselves 
against the wall, while others wrapped 
themselves in their water-proofs and de- 
liberately took to the floor. Miss Ilar- 
fleur remained sitting at the little pine 
table, where she had presided over the 
late repast, gazing absently into the fire 
and longing for morning, which always 
seems so far away to the night- watcher. 
At length, overcome by weariness, she 
leaned her head upon the table and fell 
asleep. One hand rested under her chin, 
while the other still clasped unconsciously 
the beadvS she was telling when slumber 
surprised her silent devotions. The silken 
net that confined her hair had come un- 
tied, and suffered it to fall in rich wavy 
masses about her neck and shoulders, 
while one bright tress, escaping alto- 
gether from its bindings, swept down 
and brushed the floor in a rippling stream 
of gold. Malvern stood with his back to 
the fire regarding her as a painter would 
regard some rare work of art. He had 
seen faces of more dazzling beauty, per- 
haps, but never one that attracted and 
interested him so. There seemed to be a 
perpetual contradiction between the cut 
and the coloring, the expression and pro- 
portions of the features, that more than 
made up in originality what it may have 
detracted from the regularity of their 
beauty. The look of physical weariness, 
expressed in her wdiole attitude, added 
something indescribably touching and 
pathetic to that air of appealing melan- 
choly which had struck Audley as so 
irresistibly captivating. 

“By Jove,” he said to himself, “if this 
girl were only as rich as old Bloxton’s 


28 


A FAMILY SECRET. 


pu^-nosed daufrhter she’d fill my bill ex- 
actly, but a hired sinirer in a cathedral 
choir, and a — a — umph!” 

He turned away as he made this moral 
reflection, and in doing so his eyes again 
encountered the silent stranger who had 
first attracted his observation while wait- 
ing for the train at Mill Creek Junction. 
The man was standing a little behind 
Audley, on the other side of the fire-place, 
and was regarding the lady with such 
fixed attention that he did not for some 
time perceive that the eyes of another 
were fixed upon him. Indignant at what 
he considered an impertinence, Audley 
very pointedly placed himself between 
Miss Ilarfleur and the stranger, so as 
effectually to intercept the view of the 
latter. The action was too significant not 
to be understood. A deep frown con- 
tracted the man’s brow for an instant, 
then, wrapping his cloak about him, he 
left the room without a word, and Audley 
saw him no more. 


CHAPTER IV. 

A TRESS OF HAIR. 

A BAD hotel is a good place to cultivate 
the virtue of early rising, and accordingly 
the guests at the Indian Queen were all 
astir by the first gleam of dawn, hurrying 
their preparations for departure. By 
eight o’clock the whole caravan was in 
motion again. The rain had ceased, and 
a stinging north wind was fast dispersing 
the shreds of cloud that hung above the 
horizon. Evidences of the storm were 
visible all around, in fallen trees and 
swollen water-courses, but nothing oc- 
curred to impede the progress of our 
travelers until they reached the banks of 
the Kiokee River, some eight or nine 
miles from Palmyra, where the way was 
blocked for several hundred yards by a 
train of vehicles waiting to be ferried 
over. As the boat was a small one, and 
a pole-ferry is not a very expeditious 
mode of transit under any circumstances, 
the delay seemed likely to prove a tedious 
one. Audley, perceiving some soldiers 
in the act of kindling a fire on the oppo- 
site bank, behind the shelter of a cedar 
thicket ' roposed to Miss Ilarfleur that 
they should cross over and wait for 
Uncle Grief’s wagon on the other side. 


The lady assenting, he sprang to the 
ground and motioned the ferryman to 
wait. Miss Ilarfleur, active and graceful 
as she was, found it no easy matter to 
descend from their cumbersome equipage. 
She had to climb over the body of the 
wagon, and, placing her foot on the rim 
of the wheel, descend with Malvern’s as- 
sistance to the ground •, but before she 
could reach him her hand, the mules, 
startled by the movement of the vehicles 
in front as they rolled successively for- 
ward to fill the gap left by the descent 
of the two foremost into the ferry-boat, 
gave the wagon a sudden jerk and pre- 
cipitated her to the ground. She fell 
with her head between the wheels, in 
such a position that a hair’s turn must 
inevitably crush it. Audley could not 
extricate her in time, but he thrust his 
arm between the spokes of the wheel as 
if by main force to stay its revolution. 
Fortunately, at the same instant two men 
standing by the roadside flung themselves 
in front of the animals and stopped their 
progress just in time to save Miss Har- 
fleur’s life. So narrow was her escape 
that her hair had been caught under the 
wheel, and one of her curls actually 
ground off* by the rasping of the iron tire 
against the flinty pebbles with which the 
road was strewn. Audley raised her 
from the ground as he would have lifted 
the dead, and seated her half fainting on 
a piece of timber that lay by the roadside. 

^‘Are you hurt? Are you seriously 
hurt, Miss Harfleur?” he inquired, anx- 
iously, wiping the dust from her fiice 
with his handkerchief, while their com- 
panions crowded round with offers of 
assistance. 

“No,” she answered, slowly recover- 
ing herself, “not seriously hurt, I be- 
lieve ; but you are,” she added, suddenly 
changing countenance, as she looked into 
his face and saw there an expression of 
pain which he could not disguise. The 
wheel into which he had thrust his arm 
had, in turning, crushed it like an egg- 
shell, fracturing the bone in two places, 
and dislocating the shoulder. 

There were, fortunately, two army 
surgeons in the company, and Miss 
Ilarfleur’ s former association with the 
Sisters of Charity, in their ministrations 
at the New Orleans hospitals, rendered 
her a useful auxiliary in the work of 
binding a broken limb. In the course of 
an hour the fractures were set and band- 
aged, and Audley had the satisfaction of 
hearing that, with proper care, his arm 
would be all right in time, though many 


MR. CHANCE MAKES A NEW ACQUAINTANCE. 


29 


weeks must elapse before he would be fit 
for active service. 

During all this time the golden tress 
that had been so rudely severed from 
Miss Ilarfleurs head lay in the road un- 
observed. Audley was the first to per- 
ceive it, as he turned to get into the 
wagon again, and he stooped and picked 
it up. He looked at it admiringly, made 
a step towards Ruth, then hesitated, ran 
liis fingers caressingly through the silken 
meshes, and then — detestable thief that 
he was ! — quietly hid it away* in his 
pocket. 

The rest of the journey to Medway 
was accomplished without any incident 
worth recording, and on the afternoon of 
the third day our travelers found them- 
selves comfortably lodged in the beautiful 
city that forms the northern terminus of 
the S. A. & G. C. R. R., — which, being 
interpreted, means the South Ambury 
and Gulf Coast Railroad; so called, no 
doubt, after the usual fashion of railroad 
nomenclature, because it does not ap- 
proach anywhere within a hundred miles 
of the coast. Here the intimate compan- 
ions of a brief space went their different 
ways, — never, perhaps, to meet again, and 
destined henceforth to be of no more ac- 
count to one another than if they had 
never trod a few steps of life’s journey 
together. The Georgia major — whose 
name, by the way, was Maelstrom — was 
the only one of their former associates 
whom Audley and Ruth found on the 
train next day, when they took passage 
for South Ambury. He owned a planta- 
tion near that place, and had something 
to d(f with a Government supply depot 
established there. 

But another person whom they had 
seen on their journey was aboard the 
same train, though they knew it not. 
This person had skulked about the ofiice 
till he saw Malvern buy tickets for South 
Ambury, and then quietly took passage 
in a second-class car for the same place. 


CHAPTER y. 

MR. CHANCE MAKES A NEW ACQUAINTANCE. 

A MORE tedious and uninteresting ex- 
pedition to a stranger cannot well be 
imagined than the journey by rail to 
South Ambury. A few miles from its 
northern terminus the railroad enters 


that dead flat region known as the 
‘‘piney Avoods,” which stretches for hun- 
dreds of miles over the loAAdands of the 
South Atlantic States, presenting a weary 
succession of forest and jungle, inter- 
spersed with isolated clearings, where 
the old, dead pines, bleached and blis- 
tered by the almost tropical sun of that 
far Southern region, and tAvisted by its 
storms into a thousand fantastic shapes, 
stretch their wasted arms to heaven, as 
though the ghosts of the forest giants 
Avere stilKhovering disconsolate over the 
scene of their destruction. 

During the months of November and 
December the aspect of the*piney Avoods 
is particularly uninviting. The foliage 
of their scrubby undergrowth of hickory 
and black-jack never displays the bril- 
liant hues that adorn the autumnal 
forests of colder climes, but, withering 
slowly through the long, scorching sum- 
mers, gradually parches up and fiides 
into a dingy, lifeless brown. The dead 
leaves hang upon the trees all winter, 
giving them a dull, ragged appearance, 
more melancholy than the naked bleak- 
ness of a Northern forest. Even the 
snoAvy cotton-fields, through Avhich the 
railroad cut its Avay, at times, for miles 
together, failed to impart an aspect of 
cheerfulness to the scene, but seemed 
rather, by their very vastness, to increase 
the air of loneliness and melancholy that 
was the prevailing feature of the land- 
scape. The train sped on for hours, over 
miles and miles of such unvarying mo- 
notony that Audley could scarcely realize 
it Avas moAung at all, and almost fancied 
that the locomotive itself had become in- 
fected by the sluggish languor of the 
place. Far as the eye could rearch, in 
every direction, stretched the same dull, 
flat landscape, with its changeless can- 
opy of pines overhead, and its unfailing 
carpet of wire-grass underfoot. Audley, 
feverish from his Avound, and intolerably 
Aveary of the tiresome prospect, was truly 
rejoiced Avhen, at three o’clock in the 
afternoon, the train drew up before the 
substantial red brick depot that marked 
the southern terminus of the railroad. 

South Ambury is a flourishing little 
toAvn on the north bank of the Petaula 
River,- in the very heart of the piney 
woods ; and the great cotton warehouses 
that surround the depot, and line its 
principal thoroughfare, bear ample testi- 
mony to its importance as a centre for 
storing and shipping the great staple. 
During the fall and winter a general 
aspect of lintiness pervades the place. 


30 


A FAMILY SECRET. 


as though a sort of cotton carnival Avas 
in progress. Tufts of lint, soiled and 
ragged, are flying about in every direc- 
tion, sticking to people’s clothes, dodging 
about under their feet, clinging to the 
telegraph Avires, dancing over the railroad 
track, and on Avindy days Avhirling about 
in the air like Avandering snoAv-flakes, 
soiled and travel-stained Avith the toils 
of a Avearisome journey through an un- 
knOAvn land. 

Everybody in South Ambury is con- 
nected, in some Avay, A\dth the cotton 
business ; and although, at the time of 
AA-hich Ave are Avriting, it Avore something 
of a militaiy aspect, yet its fine Avar- 
trappings did not sit easily upon the 
honest little trading toAvn, Avhose air of 
commonplace prosperity Avould obtrude 
itself amid them all, like the homespun 
breeches of a rustic militia-man under 
his laced coat and cocked hat. The great 
cotton Avarehouses Avere uoav, most of 
them, converted into supply depots for 
the army ; and the SAvord had taken the 
place of the ploAvshare, and the spear 
of the pruning-hook, yet the natural 
spirit of the place lingered about it still, 
and Avas so “catching,” as the negroes 
say, that all comers were insensibly 
affected by it; and Avhile the red fields 
of Virginia Avere being ploAved AAuth 
bombs and soAvn with bones, men might 
still, sometimes, be heard, in the streets 
of South Ambury, discussing the price 
of cotton, or even the value of “ niggers.” 

The region tributary to this happy 
village, from Avhich it derived its impor- 
tance, was, at the time to Avhich this story 
refers, laid ofi* in great plantations, of 
many thousand acres each, Avhich were 
in the hands of a few wealthy slave- 
holders. The division of the country 
into these A^ast estates tended to gii^e it 
that lonely, unpopulated aspect Avhich 
had impressed Colonel Malvern so un- 
favorably ; for even the largevSt planters 
could not pretend to keep the whole of 
their vast domains under cultivation, and 
great tracts of Avild land lay between tlie 
inhabited portions of the different plan- 
tations. These unoccupied lands afforded 
roosting-places for the mean Avhites, or 
“crackers,” as they are termed in local 
parlance, who squatted about on the 
borders of the great estates, and subsisted 
by petty rogueries and impositions upon 
their wealthy neighbors, Avhich had been 
connived at by the slipshod benevolence 
of the latter, till they came to be re- 
garded by the “crackers” as hereditary 
prerogatives. 


A specimen of this interesting class 
was standing on the platform at the South 
Ambury depot Avhen Audley Malvern and 
Kuth Ilarfleur descended from the train, 
lie was a tall, slab-sided figure, Avith a 
loose, shambling look about the joints, 
as if they Avere strung together on old 
wires that were constantly threatening to 
gh^e Avay and let him fall to pieces. Ilis 
scraggy hair and Avhiskers might almost 
have passed for tufts of his native Avire- 
grass, so stiff and scrubby were they, and 
could scarce be distinguished in color 
from the murky complexion peculiar t<> 
his class, — something between a cake of 
rancid talloAv and the green scum of a 
stagnant pond. lie had propped himself 
against an upright cotton-bale, with his 
hands in his breeches-pockets, and his 
legs in the attitude of the Colossus at 
Rhodes, spanning the ever-increaeing sea 
of tobacco-spit that lay betAveen his feet. 
He had been staring vacantly about him, 
without exhibiting much interest in any- 
thing until Miss Ilarfleur emerged from 
the ladies’ car, when his eyes Avere sud- 
denly arrested, and a look of the utmost 
astonishment overspread his blank fea- 
tures. He followed her with his gaze as 
she Avalked along the platform until she 
disappeared with Colonel Malvern behind 
an angle of the depot building, then, 
swinging his long body forAvard and 
slapping it back against the cotton-bale 
Avith an emphatic thump, he gave vent 
to his feelings in one expressive ejacula- 
tion, — 

“By Golly!” 

And then, drawing a long breath, he 
delh^ered himself further, — 

“ My name ain’t Jim Chance ef that 
thar ain’t Nettie Bruen come back to life 
agin.” 

As he uttered these words a traveler 
came out of the second-class car and ap- 
proached the spot where Mr. Chance was 
standing. His gait Avas loose and sham- 
bling, and his dress and general appear- 
ance so precisely that of an unmitigated 
Georgia “cracker,” that but for those 
strange, piercing, fiery blue eyes the closest 
observer Avould never have recognized in 
him the mysterious stranger whose fur- 
tive attentions to Miss Ilarfleur’ s diamond 
ring had already excited Audley Mal- 
vern’s suspicion. His voice had the un- 
mistakable “ cracker” twang as he ad- 
(^ressed Mr. Chance, and his accent and 
phraseology might have passed for that 
worthy’s own. 

“I say, mister,” he began, nodding 
slightly by way of salutation, Avithout 


MR. CHANCE MAKES A NEW ACQUAINTANCE. 


31 


taking his bands out of his pockets, can 
yer tell me how fur it might be from here 
to Saxton's Cross Roads?” 

Jim eyed the stranger deliberately, 
from head to foot, without speaking •, 
then, taking aim at a tuft of lint that lay 
near him, discharged a squirt of tobacco- 
juice with such precision as to hit it 
plumb in the middle, and finally, having 
performed this feat to his satisfaction, 
proceeded to answer the traveler’s ques- 
tion. 

“ Waal, I reckon,” he began, in a 
drawling, nasal tone, “ as it mought be a 
little better'll thirty mile.” 

The stranger next took aim at the 
cotton lint, but missing fire, pulled out a 
fresh “chaw,” and demanded in what 
direction from South Ambury Saxton’s 
Cross Roads might be. 

“D’rectly so,” answered Jim, fetching 
a sweep with his right hand that included 
all four points of the compass at once. 
But the new-comer was apparently at no 
loss to interpret the gesture, for, pointing 
directly South, he said, — 

“ That away, is it? And I ’sposen I’ll 
git thar soonest by follerin’ along the river 
road yonder.” 

“ Waal, I never was thar myself,” said 
Jim, discharging another tobacco bomb, 
“but I’ve heerd as old George Bruen’s 
Sandowne place, close by whar I lives, is 
called about half-way. I’m aimin’ to git 
out home myself to-night, an yer’ve a 
mind to come along with me I’ll set yer 
right that fur, an’ then mebbe some o’ Mr. 
Bruen’s folks can give yer a lift the rest 
o’ the way ; his waggin goes down every 
week to the old Kingsmount place, which 
it is close by whar you wants tu go 
ter.’^ 

The stranger was silent a moment, as if 
meditating upon this proposal, and Mr. 
Chance, remembering that the questions 
had, as yet, been all on one side, took ad- 
vantage of the pause to become catechist 
in his turn, which he did in a delicate way 
by asking the other what mought be his 
business at Saxton’s Cross Roads. 

“I’m a — a goin’ to see a sister of mine 
what lives down that way,” replied the 
stranger. “ Mrs. Thompson Smith ; may- 
be you mought be acquainted with her.” 

Mr. Chance thought he had heerd the 
name afore, but couldn’t say as he knowed 
the lady, and then inquired if the stranger 
called himself Smith. 

“ No ; my name it’s Roby, — Dick Roby *, 
and yourn ?” 

“ Chance, — Mr. Jeems Chance, fust 
cousin to Billy Chance, what knocked 


Alick Crane’s eye out last election-day.” 
And having thus given the family honors 
an airing, he observed, with a glance at the 
stranger’s weather-beaten countenance,—^ 

“Ben a soldierin’, hain't yer?” 

“ No ; too old for that,” answered Roby, 
raising his hat to show his gray hairs. 
“ And you?” 

“ Devil a bit of it,” cried Jim, with more 
emphasis than his lantern jaws seemed 
capable of expressing. “ This here’s the 
rich men’s quarrel, and they may do their 
own fightin’. ’Taint none of my bisness 
if the d — d niggers does git sot free. Ef 
things goes as they say they’re like to do 
now, some folks what holds their heads 
high enough to-day will be brought down 
to bite the dust afore long, and some other 
folks as I knows on won’t be sorry fur it, 
neither. I wonder now what the likes o’ 
that fine officer chap yonder ’ll do,” catch- 
ing a glimpse of Audley Malvern’s gilt 
trappings, as the light cariole he . had se- 
lected to convey Miss Harfleur from South 
Ambury rolled away from the depot, 
“when the bottom rail comes to be topper- 
most and the top rail bottommost? Ef 
the derned niixgers does git sot up, them 
what owns ’em ’ll git sot down, — that’s 
one comfort.” 

.“ And who might that gallivantin’ 
young officer be,” asked Roby, not heed- 
ing Mr. Chance’s political disquisition, 
“ and the pretty lady with him ? Some 
o’ your quality folks, eh?” 

“ I dunno who he is, nor wot he is,’^ 
growled Jim, “but for the young lady, ef 
Nettie Bruen hadn’t been dead and in her 
grave these fifteen year, I’d swear ’twas 
her, for she’s as like as like can be.” 

“ Fifteen years !” cried Roby, with a 
start ; “ fifteen !'’ And for the moment he 
forgot his acting, if acting it was, and 
every vestige of the native accent forsook 
his voice. 

“ Why, yes ; fifteen year, and more,” 
replied Jim, not observing Roby’s sudden 
agitation. “Let’s see; she died when 
Bruen Harfleur was born, that was the 
summer arter me an’ Milly was married, 
which it will be sixteen year the third 
week arter Christmas. But come, Mr. 
Roby, the sun’s a gittin’ low, an’ it’s a 
good long bit from here to Sandowne, so 
we’d best be a movin’ ef yer’re a goin’ 
with me.” 

The proposal required no consideration 
this time. 

“Well, no, Mr. Chance,” replied the 
stranger. “I’m obleeged tu yer fur yer 
offer, but I don’t reckon as I can git on 
with yer this evenin’ ; I’ve jest bethought 


32 


A FAMILY SECRET. 


me of a little bisniss I’ve got on hand 
that’ll likely keep me over tell to-morrow : 
evenin’. But I tell you what I’ll do, Mr. 
Chance, ef you’re agreeable: I’ll inquire 
the way to your place v/hen I do git off, 
and turn in with you for the night, and 
you can set me on my way in the mornin’. 
And I’ll bring a mouthful o’ somethin’ 
with me, Mr. Chance, tu make us com- 
fortable.” 

IMr. Chance’s mouth began to water in 
anticipation, and the new friends parted 
company for a time, Roby directing his 
steps with remarkable accuracy for a 
stranger towards the principal thorough- 
fare of the town. With a little inquiry, 
he made his way to the office of the 
“ South Ambury Reporter,” where he 
asked, and readily obtained permission, to 
look over old files of that interesting pub- 
lication. He was shown into a large 
room, piled to the ceiling with rows of 
musty folios, and there left to prosecute 
his search at leisure. Taking from his 
pocket a small and carefully-folded pack- 
age, he selected from it an old, faded 
letter, in a sprawling masculine hand, 
which inclosed a slip'of printed matter, 
apparently a short paragraph cut from a 
newspaper, and yellow with age, like the 
letter. After reading this over two or 
three times, and carefully noting the date 
of the document that contained it, he ran 
his eyes hastily over the pile of dusty 
records till they rested upon a volume of 
the Reporter’s” immediate predecessor, 
the “ Pioneer,” for the year 1841. This 
publication bore the name of one Julian 
Harfleur, as editor, and Roby explored its 
columns with the utmost care, but^ ap- 
parently without lighting upon any item 
of interest. He observed, however, that 
several numbers were missing from the 
file in which he would have been most 
likely to find what he wanted. Of these 
he made note, and then arranged the 
others carefully in order, so that his 
memorandum might at any future time 
be easily verified. 

He next turned to the file for the year 
1849, fifteen years back, and after a long 
and patient inspection discovered, if not 
the object of his search, something that 
surprised and agitated him as no antici- 
pated discovery could have done. It was 
but a short paragraph, — a marriage or a 
funeral notice, apparently, — but the paper 
trembled in his hand as he read it, and 
his blue eyes flashed with a fierce fire 
that made them, for the moment, terrible 
as a madman’s. As he crushed the paper 
in his grasp, and strode angrily to and 


fro in the dusky* room, every trace of the 
abject servility he had lately worn forsook 
him, and the true man, proud, bold, defi- 
ant, as if newly awakened to a sense of 
some grievous wrong, shone out from 
under the rags and misery in which he 
had clothed himself. 

“ My God ! my God !” he cried, in a 
frenzied voice, “who would have believed 
that human treachery could go so far?” 
And, raising his clinched hands to heaven, 
he uttered a terrible vow of vengeance. 


CHAPTER YI. 

SOME SCRAPS OF FAMILY HISTORY. 

Early on the following afternoon Dick 
Roby crossed the Petaula, and set out in 
the direction that Mr. Chance^ had taken 
the day before. His inquiries of that 
worthy concerning the route were evi- 
dently altogether superfluous, for he now 
kept directly on his way, unembarrassed 
by the thousand cross-roads and by-paths 
that cut the piney woods in every direc- 
tion, and are so bewildering to strangers. 
He seemed even to know all the short 
cuts and “turn-outs” that diverged from 
the main road, pausing at times and 
looking around as if to refresh his mem- 
ory, but never once losing his way or 
retracing his steps. 

He walked steadily on for several hours, 
until, just as night was closing in, he 
reached the brow of a little knoll, from 
which, gleaming with the last rays of the 
setting sun, the clustering roofs of ^ a 
neighboring plantation village were dis- 
cernilile in the distance. He paused here 
awhile, and stood gazing wistfully at the 
blue smoke as it went curling up from 
the cabin chimneys among the pines. 
The sturdy strokes of an axe that echoed 
through the forest, and the musical ring 
of the swineherd’s evening call, mingling 
with the distant hum of cabin and barn- 
yard, had a sweet rural sound, suggestive 
of peace and plenty. A tender, pensive 
expression gradually crept over Roby’s 
stormy countenance, and something like 
a tear glistened in the corners of the 
strange, fiery blue eyes. He felt in his 
pocket for his handkerchief, but in doing 
so his hand rustled the papers he carried 
there, when suddenly every sign of gentler 
feeling vanished from his face, and, dash- 


SOME SCRAPS OF FAMILY HISTORY. 


33 


ing the unhidden tears angrily from his 
cheek, he muttered a curse and turned 
away into the forest. 

He had gone a mile or two in this 
direction, when the obscure by-path he 
was following terminated abruptly on 
the border of a great cypress swamp. It 
was now so dark that his view of the 
gloomy landscape around him was very 
imperfect, and for the first time he 
seemed at a loss how to proceed. As he 
stood there listening to the melancholy 
sighing of the wind in the pines and the 
lonely song of the whip-poor-will in the 
brake, his attention was suddenly ar- 
rested by the glare of a torch against the 
tall cypress-shafts and the sotind of hu- 
man voices close at hand. 

“ Now git along with you, Jeems Bu- 
chanan,” cried a harsh, nasal voice, that 
he immediately recognized as belonging 
to Mr. Jim Chance. “ Git along faster, 
or I’ll wallop yer till yer can’t set down. 
I’m tired o’ bein’ pestered with yer.” 

While uttering these words, Mr. Chance 
and his companions, two tallow-faced 
urchins carrying lightwood torches, and 
a half-grown girl with a greasy baby in 
her arms, emerged from the thicket and 
advanced towards the spot where Eoby 
stood. 

“ Hulloa thar, — who’s that?” cried our 
friend Jim, starting back uneasily as the 
torchlight fell upon the motionless figure 
by the roadside. 

’Taint nobody but me, Mr. Chance,” 
answered Roby, advancing to meet him. 

You needn’t be oneasy.” 

“Oh, it’s you, is it, Mr. Roby? I’m 
powerful glad to see yer,” answered Jim, 
drawing a long breath of relief. “ I’d 
meant to ’a stepped up the road a piece 
and met you this evenin’, but I’ve been 
busy all day a helpin’ at Mr. Bruen’s 
sugar-bilin’, and couldn’t git oflP. Here, 
you Alick Stephens Bonaparte,” he con- 
tinued, addressing one of the tallow-faced 
urchins, and pointing to a foot-path Roby 
had not observed before, “ run up yonder 
now, quick, and take Aunt Chloe that 
bucket o’ ’lasses old Mrs. Bruen sent her, 
and be quick about it. Don’t keep me a 
waitin’ here the whole night, all along 
of a derned free nigger.” 

Roby turned and looked with peculiar 
interest at the cabin, half concealed by 
limes and myrtles, towards which the 
boy Avas hastening. 

“Aunt Chloe,*” he repeated, slowly, as 
if thinking aloud, — “ Aunt Chloe — can it 

be ” Then suddenly recollecting Mr. 

Chance’s presence, he checked himself. 


without completing the sentence. Jim 
had heard the exclamation, and inter- 
preted it according to his own feelings. 

“ Why, yes,” he growled, in a surly 
tone, “ Mrs. Bruen ain’t got no more 
cornsideration than to bother me with 
fetch in’ truck to a good-for-nothin’ free 
nigger • and I don’t like to make no ob- 
jection, you see, ’cause ef all folks say 
be true, it’s best not to have her sort for 
your enemy. Not that I believe in any 
o’ their nonsense about witches and the 
like,” he added, with an air of superior- 
ity, but at the same time casting an un- 
easy glance towards the cabin ; “but this 
I do know, that folks don’t live to be as 
old as Aunt Chloe by no nat’ral means. 
They say she was a ’oman grown when 
old Calvert Bruen, which he was the 
father of Randolph and George, fust took 
possession o’ the Sandowne property, and 
that must be nigh on to eighty year 
ago.” 

“ She’s a old family servant, I s’pose,” 
said Roby, in a tone of indifference. 
“ Them rich folks sets more store by 
their own niggers nor they do by poor 
folk like us.” 

“Wall, no, thar’s the Avust of it,” 
said Jim *, “ she ain’t no family servant 
o’ theirn, but a derned free nigger ; and 
yet Mr. Bruen lets her live on his land, 
as his father did afore him, and takes ^ 
care on her all the same as if she Avas 
one o’ his own people. I’ve heern tell as; 
she used to belong to a family of South- 
mates, that owned all the property afore 
the Bruens came into the country, and 
Avas high quality people in their day. 
When old man Southmate died, the chil- 
dren all run through Avith their money^ 
and went to the dogs as fast as ever they 
could. The sons drunk theirselves to 
death, and nobody ever knoAved Avhat be- 
come o’ the daughters more ’n that both 
on ’em quit the country, and turned out 
no better ’n they should be. Old Wilfred 
Southmate, jest afore he died, give Aunt 
Chloe her freedom, ’long of some service 
she had done the family. Old Calvert 
Bruen, he come out from Virginny Avhen 
Randolph Bruen, that’s dead noAv, Avas a 
boy, and bought up the Southmate prop- 
erty. He found Aunt Chloe thar, and he 
’loAved her to stay, and his son George, 
what fell heir to the SandoAvne estate, he 
done the same, an’ it’s thought by some 
as she knows more about the secrets o’ 
both families than some folks Avould like 
to have told.” 

Alexander Stephens Bonaparte having 
returned by this time, Mr. Chance cut 


34 


A FAJflLY SECRET, 


short his reminiscences, and the party 
resumed their walk. The road, for the 
next quarter of a mile, lay across a chain 
of slouo'hs and lime-sinks connected with 
the swamp, and the walking was so bad 
as to leave no leisure for conversation. 
After this it divided, one path leading 
round the swamp, the other striking off 
at right angles, through an old field of 
dead pines, till it terminated abruptly 
at Mr. Chance'S door, — if such an epi- 
thet could be applied to the oblong hole 
in the wall, screened with a dirty blan- 
ket, that gave entrance to the habitation 
of that useful member of society. 

As Roby approached this wretched 
abode of poverty and ignorance he was 
painfully impressed with the evidences 
of slothfulness and neglect that were 
visible all around it. The chimney, built 
of mud and sticks, had by dint of frequent 
conflagrations at the wrong end been re- 
duced to a level considerably below the 
cabin roof, and the slovenly worm fence, 
that partially surrounded the hut, had 
rotted away at one end before the bottom 
rail was laid at the other. No signs of 
cultivation, not even a potato -hill or 
“ gubber - patch,” were anywhere to be 
seen, but wood-fern and wire-grass flour- 
ished, in rank luxuriance, under the very 
eaves of the dwelling. Although the 
cabin was so old that a thick growth of 
mosses and lichens covered its decaying 
timbers, it was still in the unfinished con- 
dition in which it had been left by Mr. 
George Bruen’s workmen seventeen years 
before, when, in view of young Chance’s 
approaching marriage, that excellent 
gentleman undertook to set him up in 
life by clearing a field on a remote corner 
of his own estate, and sending a dozen 
of his best hands to help rear a cabin and 
put it in such a condition that the young 
man might easily complete the work him- 
self. But it was against Mr. Chance’s 
principles to work, and though the best 
of timber lay rotting around him, it had 
never entered the mind of the unpro- 
gressive Jim to reconstruct his chimney 
or put a door to his cabin. lie would turn 
an honest penny for himself, now and 
then, by selling to his wealthy neighbors 
any of their own sheep or cattle he hap- 
pened to find astray, and had once coolly 
offered to trade to Mr. Bruen the portion 
of that gentleman’s own estate upon 
which he had allowed the Chance family 
to settle. Jim’s other active efforts in 
life were devoted to fishing and hunting, 
especially “nigger” hunting, at which he 
was such an adept that his name was a 


terror to runaways for miles around. 
Ilis children were brought up to walk in 
their father’s footsteps, and easily fell 
into habits of dependence on Mr. Bruen’s 
indiscreet beneficence, thinking it quite 
natural and proper that they should live 
by a system of recognized pilfering and 
imposition upon their benefactor, while 
the field he had cleared for them went 
back to the unreclaimed wilderness, and 
their unfinished cabin became every year 
more of a ruin. 

The interior of the hovel corresponded 
in every respect with its unpromising 
exterior. A dirty bed in one corner, 
two wooden chests, three or four split- 
bottomed chairs, a pine table with a pail 
of water on it, and a wooden shelf over 
the fire-place, displaying a small row of 
crockery in various stages of dilapida- 
tion and uncleanliness, completed the- in- 
ventory of movables, while Mr. Chance’s 
better half, together with their three 
youngest children, a cat, six kittens, two 
puppies, and a pig, may be said to have 
constituted the live-stock of the estab- 
lishment. 

Milly Chance, christened by her parents 
Millennium, but irreverently called Milly 
for short by the rest of the world, was a 
tall, raw-boned woman, in a greasy home- 
spun dress, with a red gingham necker- 
chief pinned across her shoulders, and 
a quantity of shaggy rust-colored hair 
twisted in a rough coil at the back of her 
head. She was sitting on a corner of 
the hearth with a three weeks’ old baby 
at her breast, and a snuff-stick in her 
mouth, when Roby and his companions 
entered. The fire-light in the room was 
so dim that he would have been in danger 
of stumbling over the puppies, the kit- 
tens, and two young Chances, who were 
heaped together promiscuously on the 
floor, if the smouldering brands on the 
hearth had not been opportunely rein- 
forced by the half-consumed torches of 
Jeems Buchanan Breckinridge and Alex- 
ander Stephens Bonaparte. 

The first object of Mrs. Chance’s solici- 
tude, after exchanging the usual saluta- 
tions with her, guest, was to inquire into 
the result of the day’s foraging. Mr. 
Chance replied by displaying a bucket 
of molasses that Mrs. Bruen had given 
him, and producing from his pockets 
various little odds and ends, which, as 
Mrs. Bruen had not given them him, it 
is fair to suppose Mr. Chance had acquired 
by his own laudable industry. 

“ I think they might at least ’a given 
some bread to eat with it,” was Milly’ s 


SOME SCRAPS OF FAMILY HISTORY. 


35 


gracious comment, as she licked her 
fingers after dipping them into the syrup 
by way of testing its merit, “ cornsideriii' 
as you and four o’ the children was thar 
a helpin’ the whole day; but that’s the 
way with your rich folks, they’re always 

a grindin’ the noses of the poor Drat 

the brats ! Can’t yer hold yer jaws thar?” 

This tender ejaculation was addressed 
to the two youngest boys, Buddie and 
Jeff Davis, who were engaged in a con- 
test for possession of the pig, that seemed 
likely to end in their executing Solomon’s 
judgment upon it notwithstanding the 
animal’s vigorous protestations. After 
quieting this disturbance, Mrs. Chance 
next began to express her surprise that 
the party had been so late in returning 
from Mr. Bruen’s. “ I looked fur you 
home a hour ago, and the taters is well- 
nigh spilte waitin’ so long,” she continued, 
burrowing with a chunk of light-wood 
into a pile of ashes that lay heaped in a 
corner of the great cavernous fire-place. 

‘•Wall, Mil, you see,” began Jim, de- 
precatingly, “ we had to come round by 
the Gap Pond Road to fetch some vittles 
Mr. Bruen wanted took to old Aunt Chloe, 
and ” 

“ He’s always pesterin’ about them sort 
o’ trash,” said Mrs. Chance, with a scorn- 
ful curl of her lip. “ If I was Mr. Bruen, 
you wouldn’t catch me havin’ no sich 
good-for-nothin’ tramps on my land. And 
what’s Aunt Chloe, arter all, but a dratted 
free nigger, and a witch besides, what 
ought by all rights to be driv out o’ the 
country? And yet, Mr. Roby,” she con- 
tinued, turning to the stranger, “he’s had 
her livin’ on his land for mor ’n forty year 
they say, and he’s give her a better house 
than me and my chillun has got this 
day.” 

Roby tried to look shocked at this in- 
stance of unrewarded merit. “I should 
think,” he said, evading a direct reply, 
“from all I’ve heerd o’ this Mr. Bruen, 
as he mought be rich enough to house a 
man comfortable and never feel his pock- 
ets the lighter for it.” 

“Rich enough!” cried Milly; “there 
ain’t no end to his money; he’s got ten 
thousand acres in one batch up here at 
his Sandowne place, and mor ’n five, hun- 
dred niggers, they say, scattered about on 
his different plantations, besides the old 
Kingsmount place, and half his brother 
Randolph’s property, which he holds it in 
trust for Julian Ilarfleur’s chillun.” 

The brands that had been thrown into 
the fire when Roby first entered had died 
away by this time into smouldering em- 


bers, by whose imperfect light Milly 
Chance could not discern the stormy cloud 
that shadowed her visitor’s face as the 
name of Julian Ilarfleur fell from her lips, 
lie quickly subdued his agitation, how- 
ever, and it was in a tone of cool indifier- 
ence that he inquired, — 

“ And who might this Julian Harfleur 
be? Any kin to them Bruenses what 
you're a talkin’ about?” 

“Well, yes, a sort o’ kin ; you see he 
married old Randolph Bruen’s daughter 
fur to git the property, and bad enough 
he must ’a wanted it, too, to ’a took her 
arter all that happened.” 

Roby sat silent a moment looking into 
the fire, and then remarked, with an air of 
unconcern, — 

“ You seem to have a sight o’ rich folks 
about these parts ; this here Ilarfleur 
now, he’s got a power o’ money, too, 
hain’t he ?” 

“ Lawk, yes, money enough since he 
come in for a grab at the Bruen property, 
though I’ve heern my pa say as he knowed 
the times when Julian Ilarfleur wasn’t 
owermuch better off nor the likes o’ you 
and me, though he always did carry his- 
self that high and scornful, till it looked 
like the land wasn’t big enough to hold 
him. Old Randolph Bruen’s money has 
done turned his head pretty nigh upside 
down a’ready: I dunno what he’ll do ef 
t’other brother should leave him any o’ 
hisn, ’less he busts.” 

This awful culmination to Julian Ilar- 
fleur’s pride seemed not at all to impress 
Roby, whose only reply to Milly’ s last re- 
mark was the observation, — 

“ Then Mr. George Bruen ain’t got no 
children o’ his own, is he?” 

“ No, none o’ hfs own ; but he’s done 
gone and adopted that good-for-nothin’ 
nevy o’ his wife’s what’s named arter 
him, and there’s nobody but knows he 
might just as well take his money and 
fling it behind the fire as give it to him, 
for thar ain’t sich another drunkard 
and spendthrift in all the country as 
George Dalton. There ain’t no mischief 
nor deviltry goes on, for a hundred mile 
around but George Dalton’s at the bottom 
o’t. They say he broke his old father’s 
heart with his wildness, and Mrs. Bruen, 
she’s like to die of grief at his goings on, 
but his mother and his uncle, them two 
can’t see no fault in him no matter what 
he does. It’s a pity he do go on so, for 
he’s as pretty a young man as ever I see, 
and he’s always a kind word for the poor, 
and a king couldn’t be no freer with his 
money. The old folks, they’s keen for to 


36 


A FAMILY SECRET, 


make a match ’twixt him and Julian 
Harfleur’s daughter, hut George Dalton 
never can he like other folks in nothin’, 
and while all the other young chaps in 
the country is a breakin’ their necks arter 
her, it looks like he don’t want to have 
her.” 

“ Julian Ilarfleur’s daughter, — what’s 
her name?” asked Roby, with an invol- 
untary start. 

‘‘ Claude, they call her, and well named 
she is, too, for she’s jest sich another 
scornful piece as her old grandmother 
was afore her, which old Mrs. Harfleur 
she wouldn’t let my sister Susan come in- 
side o’ her gate, all along of Tom Flowers ; 
as if she had any right to be ^hingin’ of 
stones and her son married to Nettie 
Bruen ! There was some excuse for my 
sister Susan, too, for Tom Flowers was the 
most takin’est young man as ever I seed ; 
he used to come to my pa’s house of even- 
in’s, an’ he’d set an’ he’d spit, an’ he’d spit 
an’ he’d spit, jest as sociable as if he’d 
been one o’ the family. Any gal might ’a 
fancied him ; but to go and take up with 
a rank, good-for-nothin’ stranger what 
only got his dues when he went to the 
gallows ” 

“ Milly,” chimed in the nasal voice of 
Mr. Chance, “you’d better not be a 
rakin’ up of bygones. I ain’t never 
knowed no good yet come o’ talkin’ 
about them things, and the great folks so 
keen fur to hush em’ up.” 

“I ain’t afeard o’ none o’ your 
Bruenses, nor your Harfleurses neither,” 
retorted Milly, with a salivary discharge 
that would have done credit to Tom 
Flowers himself. “The time’s fast a 
cornin’ when the likes o’ them won’t be 
no better ’n you and me ; and for all their 
high ways there’s been that said about 
them and theirn as they won’t find it so 
easy to hush up when' they comes to 
stand at the bottom o’ the ladder.” 

Roby walked to the table, swallowed a 
few mouthfuls of water from a greasy 
calabash gourd that lay beside the bucket, 
then, resuming his seat, observed, — 

“ This here young lady you’re a talkin’ 
about is a only child, I suppose.” 

Mrs. Chance shook her head, and looked 
very mysterious. 

“There was three on ’em went by his 
name,” she said, “ but it looks like he 
don’t want to own none but Claude, 
’cause she’s cracked up all over the 
country for sich a beauty and fine lady. 
Bruen, poor lad, is crook-backed and 
lame ; and though he has got a bad name 
for mischievousness and onruliness the 


country over, ’taint his own pa as should 
turn agin him. But Julian Harfleur is 
that proud and set up in his mind he 
can’t abide his own son shouldn’t be a 
credit to him.” 

“ And what’s become o’ t’other one, — 
you said there was three? Is he a cripple 
too?” 

answered Mrs. Chance, with 
a strong emphasis on the pronoun. 
“ T’other one warn’t a Ae, ’twas a gal.” 

“Oh, it’s dead, then,” said Roby, put- 
ting a fresh “ chaw tobacco” in his 
mouth. 

“Well, no; ’taint dead neither, as I 
knows on,” replied Milly, “but there’s 
them what thinks it owes no thanks to 
Julian Harfleur for that. He seemed 
keen enough to git her out o’ the way as 
soon as ever her m a died, for all he had 
spoke so fair ” 

“ Milly,” interrupted Jim, a second 
time, “ there’s some folks as can hear a 
long way off, and there’s some things as 
it’s no good to talk about wdien the great 
folks is keen fur to hush ’em up.” 

Milly Chance gave a scornful toss of 
her head, but offered no reply. Roby, 
whether out of deference to his host, or 
from a fear of exciting suspicion if he 
manifested too lively an interest in the 
family history of the Bruens and Har- 
fleurs, did not return to the subject during 
his stay beneath Mr. Chance’s roof. 

The next morning, after receiving very 
explicit directions as to the route that 
lay before him, he set out on his journey, 
accompanied by Jeems Buchanan Breck- 
inridge, who had volunteered to act as 
his guide through the -woods to the main 
road; but instead of continuing in the 
direction of Saxton’s Cross Roads, he 
dismissed his guide on the first Convenient 
pretext and turned aside into the by-way 
that led to Aunt Chloe’s cabin. 


CHAPTER VII. 

GOING HOME. 

Mr. Harfleur’s plantation was about 
fifteen miles from South Ambury, and 
Audley and Ruth, upon setting out from 
the latter place, had received such un- 
favorable accounts of a certain Chickas- 
sennee Swamp that lay between as de- 
termined them not to undertake to com- 


GOING HOME, 


37 


plete the journey that evening, but to stop 
tor the night at Sandowne, the residence 
of Ruth’s uncle, George Bruen, which was 
several miles nearer, and on the hither 
side of the swamp, that was flooded, and 
almost impassable at this season. 

Ruth had been kept apart from her 
family so long, and with such persistent 
determination, that she felt many secret 
misgivings as to the reception she would 
meet with at home, and was not sorry of 
an excuse to put off for another day the 
return to her father, whom she remem- 
bered only with fear and dislike. Audley 
had observed that in all their intercourse 
together she had studiously avoided any 
allusion to her family, and as they drew 
near their destination her manner be- 
trayed a nervousness and anxiety which 
she strove in vain to conceal. Clearly, 
all was not right, though where the 
wrong lay, or what knowledge she had 
of it, if an3r, he could not make out. 
Naturally, his thoughts reverted to the 
time when he had first seen her, a little 
child, consigned by a father’s decree to 
what seemed the very jaws of destruction *, 
and the suspicions that had then pre- 
sented themselves to his mind recurred 
again, together with certain not very 
comfortable reflections upon the position 
in which he might be placing himself by 
his instrumentality in introducing to a 
respectable family one of its members 
whom the head of the house seemed to 
have his own reasons for wishing ibo keep 
in the background. 

But whatever selfishness there may 
have been about Audley Malvern was 
merely the result of education, not the 
prompting of a heart naturally bad ; and 
since chance had placed Ruth Harfleur 
under his protection, he resolved that she 
should not be deprived of it until he had 
placed her safe in the hands of those to 
whom she had a natural right to look for 
shelter and support. 

Their road, for the first few miles after 
leaving South Ambury, lay along the 
banks of the Petaula River, whose waters 
they saw at intervals gleaming through 
the masses of foliage that clustered along 
its borders. Tall bays and magnolias 
reared their towering heads to heaven, 
while their feet were wrapped in the 
white mist that hovered over the stream, 
whose placid surface glistened like a silver 
ribbon through a veil of gauze. Fringy 
cypress, crowned with their tufted sprays 
of sombre autumn brown, and draped 
with pendent wreaths of long, gray moss, 
made a melancholy feature in the land- 


scape ; spreading live-oaks, covered from 
base to summit of their dark green cones 
with the same sad drapery, bore a rude 
resemblance to the vaulted arches of some 
gray old ruin, with ivy peeping through 
the crevices. To the right there was a 
gentle swell of the surface upward from 
the river *, and the weary succession of 
pines was broken at intervals by great 
fields of cotton, stretching away in their 
white monotony like the foamy expanse 
of a wintry sea. Now and then a strain 
of some wild African chorus would reach 
the ears of the travelers as they passed a 
band of laborers returning from their 
work then it died away, and no sound 
was heard save the melancholy sighing 
of the wind in the pines and the grind- 
ing of their own wheels in the sand. 
They met no one by the way, except here 
and there a negro teamster with a load of 
bagging and rope for his master’s cotton, 
or a couple of little black urchins, in a 
single garment, driving home the cows. 

The sun was near setting when Audley 
and his companion drove out of South 
Ambury, and the evening breeze from 
the Gulf blew full in their faces •, but its 
freshness and moisture imparted just 
sufficient chill to the December weather 
of that mild climate to give our Northern- 
born hero a comfortable feeling of warmth 
as he settled himself among the shawls 
and blankets that filled the rear of their 
conveyance, and threw a light afghan 
over his left shoulder, to ward off the too 
penetrating air from the river. 

Miss Harfleur scarcely uttered a word 
during the first mile or two of their drive. 
With a light shawl wrapped round her 
shoulders, and her veil thrown back from 
her face, she sat gazing at the monotonous 
landscape with as much eagerness as if it 
had been one of the loveliest scenes in 
nature. It is a singular fact that unpre- 
possessing as these pine-flats appear to 
strangers, they possess attractions to peo- 
ple born among them that no change of 
scene or clime can countervail, and the 
heart of the Swiss wanderer does not turn 
to his mountains with a more inveterate 
longing than the South Georgian feels for 
his native pines. Though a mere child 
when she left her home, and though 
fifteen long years of absence had flung 
their misty veil about the past, yet the 
strange fascinations of her native forests 
had never lost their hold upon Ruth Har- 
fleur’ s heart. Every object that met her 
eye renewed some dim, hazy impression 
of former days. She felt like one who 
suddenly experiences the realization of a 


38 


A FAMILY SECRET. 


dream, and views with bewildered eyes 
scenes that have been dimly shadowed 
before in fleet! nor visions of the night. 

Audley grew weary at length of her 
continued silence, and began to wonder 
what the deuce she could find in the 
solemn panorama before them to engage 
her attention so closely. lie had, per- 
haps, been a little spoilt by the solicitude 
she liad constantly manifested on his 
account since the accident at Kiokee 
River, and as sick men are always in- 
clined to be a little fretful, except when 
they are bad enough off* to get frightened 
and take a pious turn, he felt half pro- 
voked with her for seeming so deeply in- 
terested in what was only a bore to him. 
He opened a book, then closed it again ; 
took up a newspaper, unfolded it, then 
laid that aside ; but failing to attract her 
attention by any of these manoeuvres, he 
at last spoke to her. 

“Really, Miss Ilarfleur,” he began, “I 
am afraid you are becoming infected with 
the pervading melancholy of this dismal 
region. What have you been thinking 
about these last two miles? Not medi- 
tating suicide I hope, though I confess 
this eternal sighing of the wind in the 
pines is enough to drive one to something 
of that sort.” 

“Don't you like it?” said Ruth, look- 
ing up at him with a smile. “ I was just 
thinking it the sweetest music I had ever 
heard.” 

Audley listened a moment in silence. 
They were going very slowly, and the 
weary grinding of their wheels through 
the sand did not tend to alter Malvern’s 
views as to the cheerfulness of life in the 
piney woods. 

“As you are so accomplished a musi- 
cian, Miss Harfleur,” he answered, “ I 
suppose I must bow to your judgment, 
though for myself I am obliged to confess 
that my taste is not sufficiently culti- 
vated to appreciate what you commend 
so highly.” 

“You mean, rather,” she replied, cor- 
recting him, “ that it is not sufficiently 
natural to appreciate the sounds of 
nature.” 

“ Perhaps so,” said Audley, with a 
scarcely suppressed yawn ; “ and you will 
want to quarrel with me next, I suppose, 
for not seeing a Paradise in this wilder- 
ness of pine and wire-grass. I'm too 
vicious now to appreciate the beauties of 
nature, eh?” he added, with a laugh. 

“ I cannot deny,” she fihswered, “ that 
to me the solemn grandeur of these stern 
old forests is very impressive. I love 


them as the Gael loves his barren hills, 
or the Icelander his rock-bound coast.” 

“And for the same reason, no doubt,” 
replied Audley, dropping his bantering 
tone, as he saw that she seemed in no 
mood for jesting, “you will generally 
find that the local and national attach- 
ments of people are strong in proportion 
to the distinctive and exceptional features 
of the objects that surround them. Hence 
the cosmopolitan instincts of city people, 
who can find nothing individualizing in 
their piles of brick and mortar ; and 
hence, also, the enthusiastic atfection with 
which the inhabitants of maritime and 
mountainous regions regard their homes. 
The ocean and the mountains are dis- 
tinctive and impressive features which 
nothing else can replace. It is the same 
with your pines, which are, I grant, suf- 
ficiently unique and peculiar. But,” he 
continued, cutting short his digression, 
“ I should have thought that your local 
attachments would have taken root else- 
where during so long an absence.” 

“ So long, — yes,” answered Ruth, mu- 
singly. “ Fifteen years ! It is almost 
enough to make an old woman of one.” 

“Your own face must be my apology 
for contradicting you there,” said Aud- 
ley, with a smile. “ Why, that way of 
reckoning would make a Methuselah of 
me, who have ten years the advantage 
of you in the race of life, or rather you 
have ten years the advantage of me, for 
after turning the corner of twenty-five I 
don’t think any of us are anxious to 
boast of the steps we have taken beyond. 
You will find your ideas as to the time 
when the epithet old ought to be applied 
to people gradually enlarging. Miss Ilar- 
fleur, as you approach nearer to it your- 
self. I remember when I cast 1113^ first 
vote, I used to think a man of forty 
verging upon dotage ; but as I approach 
nearer to that respectable period of life 
myself I find my ideas growing very 
liberal, and although I shall be thirty- 
three the 1 8 th of next March, I don’t feel 
a whit more ready for gray hairs than I 
did ten years ago.” And he shook his 
beautiful brown curls with an air of 
triumphant gayety that seemed to defy 
time itself to alter them. 

“ But we do not always reckon our 
age by the actual time we have lived,” 
said Miss Harfleur, sadly. “ I have often 
thought that, even in our limited human 
experience, a single day may sometimes 
be as a thousand years.” 

“You are right,” said Audley, im- 
pressed by a certain pathos in her man- 


GOING HOME. 


39 


ncr : “ most of us have experienced such 
moments ; but I thought they were re- 
served for the storm-beaten lives of war- 
riors and worldlings. There are some 
days in a soldier’s life that might count 
against as many years in the balance- 
book of time.” 

“ I did not think of mere physical suf- 
fering,” said Miss Harfleur, when I 
spoke of the pain that can lengthen mo- 
ments into years. It is sorrow of the 
heart that changes youth to age, and 
that can invade the cloister as well as 
the camp.” ^ 

There was a vein of sentimentality 
about this convent-bred girl, so different 
from anything Audley was used to in 
the fashionable women with whom he 
had been in the habit of associating, that 
he was amused at the novelty, and felt at 
times disposed to banter her, as if she 
had been a school-girl. 

‘‘ I should think,” he answered, look- 
ing into her face with a significant smile, 

that Miss Harfleur had inflicted a great 
dea-l more of that kind of sorrow than 
she had ever experienced.” 

Ruth was not much used to this kind 
of trifling, and felt half piqued at his 
levity, at a time when she herself was 
inclined to be unusually melancholy. 

“I see,” she said, in a vexed tone, 

that you think I don’t know what I am 
talking about, and you are laughing at 
me. Perhaps,” she added, after a mo- 
ment’s pause, “ I ought not to expect 
anything else, for I don’t believe you 
ever experienced a sorrow or a genuine 
emotion of any kind in all your life.” 

Audley laughed out. That is as much 
as to say that I have either been very for- 
tunate or very heartless,” he answered ; 

which do you mean?” 

“ Both, and neither,” was her reply. 

I am not quite sure that it is fortunate 
never to have suffered, and one may lafck 
what we sentimental people call depth 
of feeling without being actually heart- 
less.” 

“Then you believe I have never suf- 
fered, because I have no depth of feel- 
ing?” 

“ Not enough to hurt you.” 

“Do you know,” he said, looking into 
her eyes with a peculiar smile, “ that is 
equivalent to saying I have never loved?” 

“ I am not sure that love itself could 
hurt you,” she answered, — “such, at 
least, as you are capable of experien- 
cing.” 

“ That is a harsh judgment. Miss Har- 
fleur. How do you know but I am at 


this moment the victim of a consuming 
passion that I dare not tell?” 

“ Because, if you were, you could not 
play at love-making so flippantly,” she 
answered, in a tone that made Audley 
draw back and bite his lip with vexation. 
This was the first time in his life that his 
tender fooling had ever been repulsed by 
a woman, and though at another moment 
he might have laughed good-naturedly at 
his own discomfiture, he could not help 
feeling just now that he would rather the 
rebuff had come from any other quarter. 

“ You are severe,” he said, assuming a 
more serious tone, “ and yet perhaps not 
altogether unjust, for I must own that I 
am either of a singularly unsusceptible 
nature, or singularly the reverse ; for, 
though I am on the point of falling in 
love with every pretty woman I meet, I 
have never quite finished the business, 
and — fallen in.” 

“ With all your skill in the art of love- 
making, you confess yourself, then, in- 
capable of experiencing a genuine affec- 
tion ?” 

4 “ By no means. Forgive me, Miss 
Harfleur, for reminding you, since I do 
so only in self-defense, that in the world 
of fashion, where my lot has been cast, 
one meets with few women who are capa- 
ble of inspiring a deep and noble senti- 
ment ; so that, after all, perhaps my 
seeming unimpressibility may not be alto- 
gether my own fault. Men of the world 
have a great deal to make them hard and 
cynical, but I do not think we are more 
shallow or superficial than others. Our 
feelings are not so easily aroused as those 
of men whose experiences are more lim- 
ited ; but, when once moved, they are all 
the more deeply stirred for that. ,I have 
no wish to boast, like some old women, 
of a mighty pre-eminence in grief, but, on 
the few occasions upon which it has been 
my lot to suffer, I believe 1 have felt as 
deeply as it is possible for the human 
heart to feel.” 

He spoke with a gravity and earnest- 
ness that surprised his companion, and 
made her regret her former asperity. 

“ I did not intend. Colonel Malvern,” 
she began, apologetically, “ to insinuate 
that you were by nature shallow or un- 
feeling ; that would be as ungrateful from 
me, who owe so much to your kindness, 
as I hope and believe it would be unjust 
to you. What I really did mean when I 
said that I believed you had never ex- 
perienced a genuine emotion, was not 
that you were actually incapable of feel- 
ing it, but that you had never had occa- 


40 


A FAMILY SECEET. 


sion. You have that irrepressible gayety 
of spirit, that backwardness about enter- 
ing into the serious feelings of others, 
which belong, it seems to me, to one who 
has never suffered much.” 

“ Do you think so? AVell, perhaps you 
are right. Shall I tell about the moment 
of severest suffering I have ever known ?” 

She looked into his face with an ex- 
pression of eager interest. 

“ It was n'early four years ago,” he 
began, “ when I looked one night across 
the snow-covered hills of Virginia and 
beheld a light in the sky that told me the 
roof that had sheltered my family for 
nearly three hundred years was about to 
be laid in the dust, and those dearer to 
me than life itself were exposed to perils 
that I dreaded more for them than the 
rigors of that stormy winter. Duty held 
me all the while a captive chained to my 
post. I could not fly to my mother’s 
rescue ; was denied even the dying bene- 
diction of a father whose life paid the 
price of that night’s work, and my very 
dust will be banished from the soil where 
eight generations of Malverns sleep.” 

“ I did you wrong,” said Ruth, peni- 
tently; “and yet,” she added, sadly, “I 
cannot help thinking you happy even in 
your misfortunes, for you at least can 
grieve without bitterness ; you know that 
your father blessed you in his heart 
before he died, though you were not 
there to receive his words. It is better 
to be bereaved than forsaken, — better a 
thousand times to have your father’s roof 
burned over your head than his door 
closed in your face I” 

The last words were spoken with a 
passionate emphasis that startled Mal- 
vern. She had, during all her intercourse 
with him, maintained a uniform and im- 
penetrable reserve with regard to her 
family, notwithstanding the intimacy that 
had naturally sprung up between them 
under the circumstances in which they 
had been brought together. There is 
nothing that breaks down conventional 
barriers and promotes rapid friendships 
like a long journey. Two people will 
feel like old friends after a day’s journey 
together, who might have met in crowded 
drawing-rooms throughout a whole season 
without exchanging more than a nod or a 
glance. Moreover, Audley Malvern pos- 
sessed, in a high degree, that peculiar 
charm of the well-bred Southerner, which 
consists in throwing aside every trace of 
constraint and reserve without once over- 
stepping the sharp but narrow line that 
divides the most perfect ease of manner 


from obtrusiveness and familiarity. From 
the first day of their acquaintance, Miss 
Ilarfleur had felt as free and unconstrained 
in her intercourse with him as though 
they had known each other for years ; 
only upon one subject she had maintained 
a rigid and unaccountable reserve. 

But Audley could not be more in the 
dark upon this subject than was the lady 
herself. The complete and, on her part, 
involuntary severance of all ties between 
herself and kindred was a mystery she 
could not unravel, and a source of painful 
and bitter reflection to her. She only 
knew that she had been relentlessly ban- 
ished from home ever since her mother 
died, and that for fifteen years the only 
notice her family had taken of her was to 
thwart and baffle all her plans. They 
had cast her off without allowing her the 
miserable liberty of an outcast, — that of 
choosing her own career. In the few cold 
and peremptory letters she had received 
from her father she was repeatedly urged, 
commanded even, to take the veil, — a 
course which she persistently refused to 
adopt, partly because he commanded it, 
partly from a natural unwillingness to 
cut herself off irremediably from the career 
to which her tastes and ambition pointed, 
— the lyric stage. She could not attribute 
this desire on the part of her family to 
pecuniary embarrassment, for her recol- 
lections of home called up only scenes of 
opulence and luxury ; neither could she 
impute it to religious zeal, for she remem- 
bered her father only as a scoffer and 
contemner of all religion. Feelings of 
resentment and bitterness gradually took 
possession of her, till the very thought of 
home and kindred became a source of 
pain, and she shrank from all allusion to 
them as one shrinks from exposing a 
festering wound. But as she drew near 
her journey’s end the tumult of her emo- 
tions became so strong that she could no 
longer maintain her self-control. She 
knew that she was returning to her family 
unbidden, unwished for, perhaps, and as 
the dreaded hour of meeting drew near 
her strength gave way utterly, and the 
swelling emotions of her heart found 
utterance in the passionate outburst that 
had so astonished Malvern. A long pause 
succeeded, which Miss Ilarfleur was the 
first to interrupt. 

“You are doubtless surprised, perhaps 
shocked, Colonel Malvern,” she said, in 
an embarrassed tone, keeping her eyes 
fixed on a wisp of pine straw that she was 
twisting nervously round her fingers, “at 
the manner in which I have just spoken, 


THE BRUENS. 


41 


but if you knew the doubts and fears which 
agitate my mind at this moment you 
would not wonder at me. You are aware 
that I have been a stranger to my family 
for fifteen years. Of the causes of this 
long exile I am as ignorant as yourself, 
nor can I answer as to what reception I 
may meet with at home. I only know 
that I am returning now without my 
fathers consent, and I have every reason 
to fear against his wishes. My departure 
from New Orleans was so sudden and un- 
expected that I had no opportunity to give 
notice of my return, and I have no reason 
to hope the surprise will be a pleasant one 
to anybody. I tell you this in order that 
you may not be taken by surprise if our 
reception should be unpleasant. Of my 
father I remember nothing that is pleas- 
ant. Uncle Bruen was kind to me once, 
but has taken no notice of me for many 
years. I left a baby brother and a little 
sister, but I do not know if they have ever 
been taught my name, or even if they are 
still alive, though my heart has yearned 
towards them as a mother’s. But see,” 
she cried, suddenly raising her eyes with 
a look of eager recognition, “I begin to 
know the place now, — we are on Uncle 
Bruen ’s plantation. I remember that 
great lime-sink by the roadside, — there is 
the path that led round the swamp to 
Aunt Chloe’s cabin, — and see, across that 
field of old pines, there is the smoke 
from the chimneys of Sandowne.” 

Unconsciously she drew closer to his 
side, as one clings to a friend for protec- 
tion among strangers; and a feeling of 
utter desolation came over her as she re- 
membered that here, almost in sight of her 
father’s roof, this chance acquaintance of 
a few days was the nearest friend she had 
in the world. 


CHAPTER YIIL 

THE BRUENS. 

The spot from which Miss Harfleur had 
caught the first glimpse of her uncle’s 
home was the same little knoll already de- 
scribed as the scene of the adventurer 
Roby’s meditations. Colonel Malvern 
perceived as they approached the house 
increasing signs of wealth and prosperity. 
The road had diverged somewhat from the 
river-bank on entering on Mr. Bruen’ s es- 
tate, and had led for the last two or three 


miles through an unbroken succession 
of rich cotton-fields. A bulwark of cotton- 
bales that might have served for a second 
defense of New Orleans lay piled around 
the “gin-house,” where the hands were now 
congregating as they came in from the 
fields to have their day’s "work submitted 
to inspection. Dozens of huge hampers 
overflowing with their snowy treasure lay 
scattered over a broad platform in front 
of the gin-house, where two negro fore- 
men of the plantation were weighing. 
One of them held a blazing light-wood 
torch, for it was already dusk, while the 
other gave out the weignt of each basket 
to a lanky individual seated on a hamper 
near by, who set it down in a book. 

One of those long black whips, familiarly 
known by the negroes as a “Jim-crack- 
on,” which in those days constituted an 
overseer’s badge of authority, lay across 
the man’s knee, and betokened his posi- 
tion on Mr. Bruen’ s estate. This awful en- 
sign, however, was but a barren pageant 
in Mr. Tradwick’s hand, since his em- 
ployer rarely permitted it to be used upon 
the persons of his dependents. The only 
case of flogging that had taken place on 
the plantation for years was that of a 
luckless darkey whose carelessness had 
caused the burning of a gin-house, with 
some five thousand pounds of lint cotton. 
Mr. Bruen, in his first access of anger, 
had sworn that he would flay the offender 
alive, and commenced to cut down a hick- 
ory sapling for his diabolical purpose, but 
had ended by using a wisp of broom- 
sedge instead. The viceroy by no means 
approved of this leniency on the part of 
his government, but as he got his one 
thousand a year and free quarters all the 
same, he quietly acquiesced, and made up 
for the restraints of his hand by the license 
of his tongue, so that Audley’s first im- 
pression, judging from some very emphatic 
utterances of Mr. Tradwick that he over- 
heard as he passed, was that a horribly 
rigorous system of government was main- 
tained in Mr. George Bruen’ s dominions. 

More inviting sounds were issuing from 
the stables and barn-yard on the other 
side of the road, where the plantation stock 
were assembled for the evening feeding. 
There was a pleasant tinkle of bells from 
the “cuppen,” and a file of women and 
children wending their way towards the 
mansion with pails of milk on their heads 
made a pretty pastoral picture. A little 
farther on, at the “ Quarter,” the scene be- 
came more animated. The women had 
already opened their cabins and kindled 
blazing light-wood fires, which made their 


42 


A FAMILY SECRET. 


rude 'svalls glow with a ruddy effulgence 
that would put to shame the lustres of a 
royal saloon. Here and there at intervals 
between the cabins great bonfires were 
blazing in the open air, and little black 
urchins, in garments as primitive as fig- 
leaves, or in the still more simple d^slia- 
bilU of Eden, capered round them, revel- 
ing in the light and warmth, producing 
a general effect very similar to tliat of cer- 
tain orthodox pictures of the Infernal 
Regions, where little sable imps are rep- 
resented as disporting themselves in the 
flames. Altogether, it was a very jolly 
Inferno, and quite upset Audley’s pre- 
vious notions as to the pervading melan- 
choly of the piney woods. 

A few hundred yards beyond the 
“ Quarter,” a fine broad avenue of 
willow-oaks and wild olives disclosed the 
planter’s residence. Audley was sur- 
rised, as he approached the house, to 
nd nothing corresponding with the in- 
dications of wealth he had noticed by the 
way. Instead of the princely mansion 
he had expected to see, befitting the mas- 
ter of a lordly domain, he beheld what 
might have passed for the dilapidated 
homestead of a country farmer burdened 
with debts and mortgages. The grounds 
on either side of the avenue were totally 
unimproved, and inclosed by a common 
rail fence, while the gate at the entrance 
was a cumbersome structure, swagging 
on the ground at one end, and neither 
opening nor closing, except at the ex- 
pense of such efforts of strength as seemed 
likely to wrench it from the rude wooden 
pins upon which it turned in lieu of 
hinges. At the end of the avenue, how- 
ever, was a magnificent garden, separated 
from the outer in closure by a tall hedge 
of Cape jessamines, and all aglow, even 
at that season, with roses and camellias. 
When they alighted at the rickety little 
wattle gate that gave admittance to this 
floral paradise, Audley observed that the 
house, which was almost concealed by 
the shrubbery, was nothing but a long, 
low log cabin, or, rather, succession of 
cabins, joined together by piazzas and 
open corridors, and covering ground 
enough to contain a respectable village. 
A group of gentlemen were assembled 
on the front piazza smoking, and as the 
noise of their carriage-wheels died away 
Audley heard a sonorous masculine voice 
issuing orders to the following effect: 

“ Halloo there, you Caesar, Jim, Pom- 
pey, run, you scoundrel, to Mr. Trad wick 
and tell him to take Long Dick and Big 
Henry and twenty of his stoutest hands 


and put up a cabin, quick, behind your 
Mass’ George’s room. Here comes Mr. 
Stockdale’s carriage up the avenue, and 
we must have a place for them to sleep : 
and tell old Aby and Kitty, and some of 
the people back there, to come and take 
the ladies’ things. Run, you rascal, 
quick, or I’ll blow your brains out 1” 

Having deliverc<d this gentle admo- 
nition, the speaker came striding down 
the front walk followed by a troop of 
darkeys, big and little, jostling and stum- 
bling over one another in their eagerness 
to receive the guests and take care of 
their bundles. 

“ It is Uncle Bruen himself,” said 
Ruth, glancing at the approaching figure, 
as Audley assisted her to alight. “ Speak 
to him first, please, and tell him it is I,” 
she added, imploringly, and trembling so 
violently that she could scarcely stand 
upon her feet. 

The situation had become extremely 
embarrassing, and for a moment Audley 
felt half inclined to repent his Quixotism 
in having so rashly placed himself in a 
position that seemed likely to bring him 
into most embarrassing relations with 
people who were entire strangers to him. 
But a pretty face is a wonderful incentive 
to chivalry, and, besides, it was too late 
to retreat at this advanced stage of affairs 
even if he had desired. “At all events 
I’m in for it now,” he said to himself, 
with the desperate resignation of a man 
who feels that he has got into an inex- 
tricable scrape; and, drawing Ruth’s arm 
protectingly through his own, he advanced 
boldly towards the house. 

By the light of a flaring torch, held 
aloft by one of Mr. Bruen’ s sable escort, 
Audley could discern distinctly the re- 
markable figure presented by their host 
as he advanced towards them. He was 
a tall, portly old gentleman, with thin 
gray hair, and a countenance expressive 
of more seriousness and gravity than 
usually accompanies such rotundity of 
figure. His dress was shabby to the 
verge of meanness, and exhibited the 
most absurd incongruities of detail. His 
feet were incased in a pair of gayly em- 
broidered bedroom slippers, and the great 
white linen collar, that enveloped his chin 
and neck up to tlie ears, created an odd 
impression, at first glance, that the old 
gentleman had somehow got his shirt on 
wrong end dppermost. This collar was 
scrupulously neat and starchy, as though 
it were the one point on which the wearer 
was disposed to be foppish ; but his coat, 
which reached nearly to the heels, was 


THE BRUENS, 


43 


faded and threadbare ; and the battered 
old felt hat he had clapped upon his 
head on coming out of the house had a 
rowdyish look about it that imparted 
something grotesquely absurd to his 
naturally venerable exterior. Audley, 
who had been bred in a state of society 
where gentlemen were accustomed to 
dress in accordance with their means and 
station, was at a loss to reconcile these 
beggarly habiliments with the many in- 
dications of wealth tsurrounding the 
owner of Sandowne, and he immediately 
settled it in his mind that Uncle Bruen 
was a stingy old hunks, — a judgment 
which the old gentleman’s hospitable 
greeting forced him, the next instant, to 
recant. 

“ Well, Mr. Stockdale,” he cried, in a 
hearty, friendly tone, advancing to meet 
his guests, with both hands extended, 
“ this is kind and neighborly, to give us 
such a pleasant surprise,^ and you’ve 
brought your wife, too, — glad to see you, 
Mrs. vStockdale, glad to see ” 

lie stopped short as the torch-light fell 
over the jessamine hedge and flashed 
upon Audley’ s gilded trappings. 

“Excuse me, sir,” he said, withdraw- 
ing his extended hand and substituting a 
polite bow ; “ I mistook you for some of 
our South Ambury friends, — but come in, 
come in, we’re glad to see you all the same. 
John, ’tend to the horses there, and have 
the baggage carried in *, and here, Dinah, 
take the lady’s shawl, and tell your 
missis to have something for them to eat ; 
and, John, — halloo there, you rascal, — be 
sure to put ’em in the stable with the 
bay mare, and turn your Mass’ George’s 
horse out, for you know he’s a vicious 
brute 5 and — this way, if you please. 

Colonel ” stopping short, and glancing 

at the decorations on Audley’ s collar. 

“ Malvern,” said the latter, bowing, 
and Avith difficulty restraining his laugh- 
ter at the old gentleman’s odd jumbling 
of pronouns, — “Colonel Malvern, of Vir- 
ginia; and I trust that I bring an effective 
letter of recommendation to Mr. Bruen in 
the person of his charming niece. Miss 
Harneur, who has allowed me the privi- 
lege of acting as her escort during a long 
and arduous journey.” 

While he Avas speaking Ruth raised 
her veil and, mustering all her courage, 
calmly met her uncle’s gaze. The old 
gentleman stood as if stupefied*. Ills 
round, red cheeky grew suddenly white, 
even under the ruddy torch-light, and a 
look of pain, almost of terror, came over 
his countenance as he gazed upon the 


beautiful face that seemed to petrify 
him like a Gorgon’s head. 

“My God!” he exclaimed, shrinking 
away like one who had seen a ghost, “ it 
is Nettie Bruen come back from the 
dead !” 

“ No ; only her daughter, come back 
from the grave where you had buried her 
alive,” said Ruth, turning coldly from 
him. She had watched every movement 
of her uncle’s countenance, and flincied 
she read in its pained expression a con- 
firmation of all her fears as to the re- 
ception she was to meet with from her 
family. She let fall her veil again to con- 
ceal the tears of mingled pain and resent- 
ment that Avere starting to her eyes, and 
turning towards Malvern, who had tried to 
escape from his uncomfortable position as 
spectator of a scene by pretending to 
busy himself Avith the baggage, Avas about 
to request him to hand her back to the 
vehicle from which she had just alighted, 
and order herself driven, she hardly 
knew or cared whither, Avhen she Avas 
interrupted by her uncle. 

“It’s Nettie’s temper, too,” said the 
old gentleman, meekly, observing the 
angry gesture with which she had turned 
from him; “but come, my child,” he 
added, gently, “don't feel liurt at your 
old uncle, because you are so like your 
poor, dead mother that the sight of your 
pretty face saddens his heart ;” then, 
turning to Malvern, he continued, “Ex- 
cuse me. Colonel Mai — Mai — Mai ” 

“ Malvern,” said Audley, coming to 
the rescue of the old gentleman, who 
had a trick of never getting anybody’s 
name right: “Audley Malvern, of Vir- 
ginia.” 

“ Ah, yes, Malvern. Excuse me. Col- 
onel Mahdn, if in my surprise I forgot 
to express my thanks for your kind- 
ness in taking care of my niece, as well 
as the pleasure I feel at seeing you ; 
Melbourne is a good old Virginia name, 
sir, and those who bear it are always 
welcome to my house.” 

He led them up a broad, sandy walk, 
bordered on either side by a hedge of 
magnificent camellias, whose white blos- 
soms gleamed like stars against their 
dark background of foliage. A double- 
leaved door, of rough pine plank, ad- 
mitted them to a roomy hall, whose un- 
ceiled roof, and Avails of rude pine logs, 
seemed to Audley, unaccustomed as he 
Avas to the slip-shod grandeur of planta- 
tion homes, positively barbarous in the 
manor-house of a superb estate like San- 
doAvne. 


44 


A FAMILY SECRET. 


The hall, in spite of its dark, rude 
^yalls, was brilliantly lighted bv an old- 
fashioned chandelier that hung from one 
of the rafters, and by gleams of fire-light 
from the open doors of two front rooms. 
From one of these proceeded ahum of 
voices, as though a large company were 
assembled there, and Audley observed, as 
his host paused a moment near the door, 
in delivering Miss Ilarfleur to the hands 
of a respectable colored individual an- 
swering to the name of Maum Dilsey, 
who seemed to have special supervision 
over the private wants of the mdies of 
the establishment, that the apartment 
ivithin presented a picture of comfort, 
not to say elegance, in its accessories, 
strangely out of keeping with the rude- 
ness of its architecture. Handsome 
paintings adorned the rough pine walls, 
and the rich lace window-curtains and 
heavy tapestry carpet, though somewhat 
out of keeping with each other as w^ell 
as with the general structure of the man- 
sion, gave a cheerful and inviting aspect 
to the room. A grand piano stood open 
in one corner ; and a tall mirror over the 
rude pine shelf that served for a mantel- 
piece reflected the forms of a number of 
well-dressed ladies, reclining in after- 
dinner indolence upon the easy-chairs 
and sofas with which the room was 
abundantly supplied. A glorious light- 
wood fire crackled on the hearth, and sent 
its ruddy beams dancing from floor to 
ceiling, almost eclipsing the pale lamp- 
light that streamed from two porcelain 
globes on the piano, pearly and white, 
like two great mistletoe berries. 

Mr. Bruen did not invite his guest into 
this chamber, but leading him on to the 
farther end of the hall and thence across 
a covered piazza to a separate wing or 
cabin in the rear, opened the door " and 
ushered him into a roomy apartment 
where several young gentlemen were 
seated at the upper end of a long dining- 
table, with glasses and decanters before 
them. Here the same incongruities pre- 
vailed that Audley had observed in other 
parts of the mansion. The walls of un- 
hewn logs, chinked with mud, were 
adorned with a splendid mirror, a hunt- 
ing-scene by Landseer, and two of Ruys- 
dael’s landscapes. At one end the joyous 
light-wood blaze roared up a cavernous 
mud-and-stick chimney that might have 
served as a mouth to the Iloosac Tunnel, 
while at the other its beams were reflected 
from an elegant buffet glittering with 
silver and cut-glass. 

^‘You must have something to make 


you comfortable after your journey, col- 
onel,’^ said the old gentleman, advancing 
into the dining-room and 'seizing a Vene- 
tian glass decanter in one hand while he 
placed a hide-bottomed chair with the 
other. “ Here, George,” he continued, 
beckoning to one of the party at the 
table, “ look after our friend Colonel Mal- 
plaquet ” 

“ Why, halloo, Malvern, is that you, 
old boy?” cried a friendly voice, inter- 
rupting the old gentleman ; and the per- 
son addressed as George rose from his 
seat and advanced with outstretched hand 
towards Malvern. lie was a tall, fine- 
looking fellow, with a face that would 
have been remarkably handsome but for 
the traces of excessive dissipation that 
disfigured it. Audley gave a start of 
surprise as he spoke, then pressed forward 
with a look of eager recognition. 

“AVhat, George Dalton! you here?” 
he exclaimed, grasping the hand the other 
had extended to him. “ The last time I 
saw you you had a bullet in your breast 
that seemed likely to prove your passport 
into the other world, but I'm glad to see 
you’ve given Old Nick the slip this time.” 

“And the last I heard of you,” repli^ed 
George, laughing, “ Uncle Sam was about 
to put a hempen cravat about your neck ; 
how did you contrive to cheat the gal- 
lows.” 

“ I don’t know,” said Audley, “ unless 
Fortune has prepared better-merited des- 
tinies for us, and reserved me for the 
bullet and you for the gallows. But 
come, how the devil did you happen to be 
here in this out-of-the-way place?” 

“ Oh, I’m on the invalid list, you know,” 
said George, lazily subsiding into his chair 
again. “ I’ve been stationed at South 
Ambury for the last twelve months; and 
as my business is there, why, it follows, 
you know, as a matter of course, that I 
never am.” 

“And how the deuce came you to let 
them poke you off in a corner like that,” 
said Audley, “where there is no chance 
of distinction, and no glory to be won?” 

“Glory? — humbug,” answered George. 
“ I’m done with all that school-boy stuff.” 
He laughed contemptuously as he spoke, 
but a shade of sadness crept over his hand- 
some features that did not altogether ac- 
cord with the levity of his tone. “ What’ll 
you take?” he added, abruptly, pushing 
a glass towards Malvern. 

“ Sherry or Madeira, I don’t care 
which,” said Audley. “You know I 
never was much of a fellow for heavy 
drinks.” 


FAMILY CONNECTIONS, 


45 


Madeira the deuce! you sha’n’t!” 
cried George, snatching away the decanter 
on Avhich Audley had just laid his hand. 
“You always were a confounded milk- 
sop, Audley Malvern ; I don’t believe you 
ever were respectably drunk in your life. 
Come now, make a man of yourself for 
once, and let’s have a rousing time of it. 
Halloo there, Uncle Aby !” 

In answer to this appeal a venerable 
old darkey with a white head appeared 
at the door, and stood waiting the young 
man’s pleasure. 

“I say, old man,” continued George, 
addressing him, “ go bring me two lemons 
and a bottle of that old cognac your master 
gets out whenever the impressing officers 
come for his horses. I’ll have you a punch 
directly,” he went on, turning to Audley, 
“ that will make you mellow in spite of 
yourself.” 

“ You are the same reckless vagabond 
as ever, George, I see,” said Audley, with 
a touch of sadness in his tone. 

George’s only reply was to ring out in 
a lusty bass voice two verses of the old 
Bacchanalian song : 

“He M'ho drinks cold water and goes to bed quite 
sober, 

Falls as the leaves do fall in gloomy, cold October; 
But he who drinks g«od whisky, and goes to bed 
quite mellow, 

Lives as he ought to live, and dies a clever fellow.” 

“And now for our punch,” he said, as 
the song died away and Uncle Aby re- 
appeared at the door. “ Spalding, you 
were always a great boy on di’inks,” 
pushing the bottle towards one of his 
companions; “fix up something that will 
make a fellow glorious.” 

And here, leaving our hero under such 
hopeful auspices, we must turn our atten- 
tion for awhile to other personages con- 
cerned in this narrative. 


CHAPTER IX. 

FAMILY CONNECTIONS. 

The Bruens were one of the first fami- 
lies in the county. Indeed, so pre-emi- 
nently were they the first, that none of 
the other first families (and it is wonder- 
ful how many of them there always are) 
dared dispute that title with them. Old 
Calvert Bruen, who had come out from 
Virginia some half a century before, had 


brought with him not only the blue blood 
of an old colonial family, but that much 
more substantial supporter of aristocratic 
pretensions, a princely fortune. Of his 
two sons, Randolph, the elder, had gained 
some distinction in politics, and, though 
he neglected his pecuniary interests, had 
still left his daughter one of the richest 
heiresses in the State. He was many 
years older than his half-brother, George, 
and had now been dead some twenty 
years or more. 

George Bruen, besides his share of his 
father’s estate, had inherited an immense 
fortune from his maternal grandfather, 
and the natural increase in the value of 
his property, together with the good man- 
agement of his factor, Mr. Stockdale, had 
swelled his possessions till he was the 
master of almost fabulous wealth. He 
had been brought up by his grandfather, 
and, together with his fortune, had in- 
herited from him a bundle of eccentrici- 
ties and a habitual absent-mindedness 
that made him a most original character. 
This old grandfather, if tradition may be 
trusted, was himself an arrant old out- 
law, and had imbued his proUg4 with a 
disregard of conventionalities that was, 
perhaps, to be regretted in one of his 
elevated social position. His manners 
were often brusque, and he could utter 
the most atrocious sentiments as glibly 
as hypocrites of another kind can talk 
morality and religion, — and with as little 
sincerity. His generosity and hospitality 
were unbounded, and he had gathered 
around him such a troop of poor rela- 
tions, dependents, and hangers-on that, 
though he had no children of his own, a 
Mormon patriarch could hardly boast so 
numerous a household. Whatever was 
friendless, homeless, unfortunate, drifted 
towards him as naturally as the storm- 
beaten mariner drifts into port. Of this 
class were Miss Serena Birdsong and 
Miss Susan Giffen, two poor little old- 
maid cousins of his wife’s stepmother, 
who had floated about among their rela- 
tions until at last they stranded upon 
George Bruen, and there they stuck. 
They were meek, inoffensive, apologetic 
little women, who had a sort of stand- 
ing love-affair with each other, and 
always called one another “ Birdie” and 
“ Dovey.” 

Of a very different type was Miss Cas- 
sandra Plumb, the housekeeper, a sort 
of female grenadier, who had been origi- 
nally taken into the house out of charity, 
but had ended by making herself indis- 
pensable there. Her title to connection 


46 


A FAMILY SECRET, 


with the Eruen family was that her aunt 
had married one of old Calvert Bruen's 
overseers. The man used to^beat her, 
and George Eruen’ s mother, out of com- 
passion, liad taken the poor little orphan 
and reared her as a sort of upper ser- 
vant, or vicegerent over the blacks, a 
position which she still held in the 
Eruen household, and, though she did 
tyrannize a little over her employers 
nW and then, she had their interest 
steadily at heart, and kept many an im- 
pertinent intruder at bay, and staved off 
many an unreasonable imposition. 

To enumerate all the poor widows and 
old maids that had cast the burden of 
their little affairs upon George Eruen’ s 
broad shoulders, all the orphan children 
he was guardian to, all the poor relations 
^e .had to push in the world, the super- 
^nuated darkies he had pensioned off, 
the poor families that were ‘‘ squatted” 
over his land, would be a task too tedious 
to undertake here. But latterly a very 
onerous connection had been entailed 
upon him by the misalliance of one of 
his nephews, — George Dalton’s younger 
brother. 

Harry Dalton, while still almost a boy, 
had married, against the wishes of his 
family, Mary Norgood, whom he met at 
a boarding-house during his course at 
the University. The ^‘landlady’s daugh- 
ter” is a snare common to all collegiate 
towns, but most young men, though they 
stumble on the very brink of the matri- 
monial pitfall, escape at last through the 
vigilance of friends, or some happ3j acci- 
dent which compels them to wait till the 
wisdom of maturer years reverses the 
judgment of inexperienced youth. Harry 
Dalton, unfortunately, was of an obsti- 
nate, headstrong nature, and the opposi- 
tion of his friends served only to fix 
him in his determination to marry as he 
pleased. The girl, moreover, was a very 
pretty girl, with nothing against her but 
her family, — and who of us, at twenty- 
one, stops to think of that? Not till 
after the deed was done did poor Harry 
realize that, in marrying Mary, he had 
espoused the entire Norgood famil}^, who, 
proud of the alliance, stuck to him like 
leeches through the rest of his short life. 

This Norgood pill was a very bitter one 
to all Harry’s friends. They had built 
high hopes upon him, as well on account 
of his fine natural abilities as the steadi- 
ness and perseverance in Avhich he had 
shown himself so superior to his elder 
brother. It was, therefore, a terrible dis- 
appointment to see him entangled inex- 


tricably with people as deficient in real 
dignity of character as in the artificial 
accessories of wealth and station that too 
often pass current for it in the world. 

The Norgoods, on the other hand, were 
equally disappointed if they had expect- 
ed to reap any immediate advantage from 
Mary’s coup de fortune. The Eruens and 
Daltons were all hot-headed, impetuous 
people, and proud as the spirits that fell 
from heaven. Poor Harry was relent- 
lessly ostracized by all his family except 
George, whose generous nature would not 
permit him to desert his brother. Though 
bitterly deprecating Harry] s course, he 
generously pleaded with his father and 
uncle in his offending brother’s behalf, 
— but he pleaded in vain. The pride of 
the old men was inexorable, and they 
answered his entreaties with curses upon 
Harry’s disobedience and obstinacy. 

About this time the great civil war broke 
out, and Harry, joining the army, was 
killed in the very first battle, bravely 
fighting at the head of his company. Too 
late the pride of the Bruens and Daltons 
began to relent, and poor Harry found an 
effectual pleader at last, in the remorse 
that filled their hearts,— when anger and 
remorse were alike unavailing. Old Judge 
Dalton died soon after, heart-broken at 
Harry’s untimely fate and the career of 
reckless dissipation to which his only sur- 
viving son began about this time to aban- 
don iiimself. George Eruen, whose im- 
petuous, but not implacable temper, had 
fanned the father’s flame, was seized with 
a fit of remorseful contrition, which, not 
satisfied with raising a superb monument 
and dispatching an order to Paris for a 
full-length portrait, seemed ready to em- 
brace even the Norgoods in its work of 
expiation. Poor Harry himself was be- 
yond the reach of all atonement, but the 
repentant uncle sent for his young widow 
and offered to give her a home and take 
care of her as long as she lived. 

The whole Norgood family followed, 
magnanimously oblivious of the scornful 
rebuffs they had met with 5 nay, so very 
placable and forgiving were they, that 
they immediately began to cousin not 
merely the Daltons and Eruens, but their 
remotest connections. — such of them, at 
least, as had any pretensions to wealth or 
social importance’, and Mrs. Thomas Jef- 
ferson Norgood, Mary's sister-in-law, in 
the overflowing exuberance of her affec- 
tion, taught her children to speak of old 
Randolph Eruen and his wufe, who had 
been dead and in their graves these twenty 
years, as “Uncle Randolph” and “Aunt 


FAMILY CONNECTIONS. 


47 


Lilias,” while poor Nettie, their daughter, 
whose name the children of her own 
family were never taught to pronounce, 
was familiarly spoken of by them as 
‘•Cousin Net.” But old Mr. Bruen and 
Ills wife were so remorseful at having 
quarreled with Harry, that they felt as 
if they could never make sufficient repa- 
ration, and they quietly accepted the Nor- 
goods as a sort of expiatory sacrifice to his 
manes. Much as they resented the alli- 
ance at first, their feelings of contrition 
towards poor Harry would not suffer 
them, now, to reject any advances from 
the people on whose account thep had so 
cruelly used him, and as the Norgoods 
never failed to make advances, wherever 
they found an opening, upon people of 
wealth and distinction, it certainly could 
not be laid to their charge if the recon- 
ciliation was not rapid and complete. In- 
deed, so rapidly did they advance on their 
side, that the paternal Norgood was heard 
quoting the opinions of “ my friend 
Bruen” scarcely two hours after their 
first interview, while Mrs. Norgood alwaysf 
spoke of Mrs. Bruen, behind her back, as 
Margaret, and taught her younger daugh- 
ters to call her “ Aunt Mag.” 

Mrs. Norgood swooped down upon the 
Bruens with irresistible determination, 
and would have mother-in-lawed it over 
the entire family but for the strenuous 
resistance of Miss Cassandra Plumb, who 
kept her off at the point of the bayonet. 

Miss Cassandra and Mrs. Norgood 
had been secretly measuring swords ever 
since they first set eyes upon each other. 
There seemed to be a natural antagonism 
between them, and though they never 
engaged in open combat, the secret war- 
fare raging between them was constantly 
breaking out in little spirts of irregular 
firing, or, to drop our military metaphors 
and speak plain English, they resorted to 
the vulgar expedient of “ talking at” each 
other. Mrs. Norgood would hold forth 
in Miss Cassandra’s presence upon the 
coarseness and insolence of the lower or- 
ders, and the unreliability of white ser- 
vants ; to which Miss Cassandra would re- 
tort with some bold sarcasm upon the way 
folks did “ what kept boardin’-houses.” 
Mrs. Norgood would revenge herself with 
some spiteful reflection upon old maids, 
whereupon Miss Cassandra would speak 
her mind as “ to folks what entrapped 
young men afore they was hardly growed 
up, and pushed theirselves where they 
wasn’t wanted.” Mrs. Norgood was one 
of those mothers who look upon marriage 
as the sole end and aim of every woman’s 


existence, and had so impressed this idea 
upon her daughters, that Miss Cassandra’s 
sturdy independence of character was an 
inexplicable riddle to them -, and Mary 
Dalton, with innocent curiosity, one day 
asked that respectable female how she, 
being unmarried, and with no apparent 
chance of ever changing her condition, 
could be so happy and contented. Miss 
Cassandra’s answer would solve many 
another knotty question in life, if we 
would but lay it to heart. 

“ La, child,” she said, looking up with 
a good-natured smile from the dough she 
was kneading, “ ’taint nothin’ to be a old 
maid after you once give up struggling.” 

Mary Dalton, Harry’s widow, was one 
of those happily-constituted beings who 
accept whatever good falls to their lot 
as a matter of course, without a doubt 
or a question beyond their own en^y- 
ment. She was fond of her relations, 
and glad to see them so comfortably pro- 
vided for ; not that she was a mercenary 
schemer, — far from it 5 she was an amia- 
ble little soul, pleased to have her family 
share her good fortune, and it never en- 
tered Mary’s simple little brain to expect 
that what was agreeable to herself might 
not always ^e so to other people. She 
soon became, to do her justice, sincerely 
attached to her Uncle Bruen, and was 
highly gratified to think that she had 
been the means of bringing him in con- 
tact with such delightful people as she 
honestly believed her papa and mamma, 
her sisters and brothers, her aunts and 
uncles, and cousins and cousins-in-law, 
and cousins-in-laws’ cousins and sisters 
and brothers to be. She bore no malice 
to any one, and had forgotten the objec- 
tions that were raised against her own 
marriage the moment they were with- 
drawn. As to pecuniary considerations, 
she was as innocent of them as if she 
had been bred in Utopia. Whatever may 
have been the designs of her family, 
Mary was influenced in her marriage 
with Harry by affection alone, and had 
never deliberately calculated upon his 
prospects in life ; still, now that she was 
fairly received by his family, though she 
entertained no positive designs of lead- 
ing her relations to sponge on Harry’s 
friends (indeed, poor little Mary had 
very few positive ideas of any sort in her 
head), she was not annoyed by the scru- 
ples of delicacy that would have affected 
a woman of different character and breed- 
ing in the same situation. She had a 
general idea that Mr. Bruen was, as her 
mother told her, “ rich as Crocus,” and 


48 


A FAMILY SECEEF 


beyond that she never thought or cared, 
except to feel that it was very nice to 
live in Mr. Bruen’s house, and have 
everything she vranted, and associate 
familiarly with all the grand people she 
used to hear of in her own home as the 
radiant divinities of some unattainable 
Olympus. She was not disposed to be 
selfish in her enjoyment of the good 
things that cost her nothing, but, pleased 
to have her friends made partakers of 
them, she was forever inviting fresh 
hordes of cousins to Sandowne, till it 
seemed to the unlucky Bruens that half 
the world was peopled with Norgoods. 
These invitations were always accepted, 
— indeed, many of the cousins did not 
wait to be invited at all, for “dear 
Mary” had become such a favorite since 
her rise in the world that none of her 
family could bear to be separated from 
her long at a time. 

Mr. Bruen tried to get rid of the most 
oppressive of these hangers-on, by using 
his influence with the Government to pro- 
cure their appointment to various little 
sinecures, where they had only to keep 
out of mischief and draw their pay ; but 
as fast as he could get one into a place 
another would get out, and so they kept 
up a perpetual see-saw of ins and outs, 
that left the poor old gentleman no peace 
of mind. Mr. Thomas Jefferson Nor- 
good had first been in the Nitre Bu- 
reau, then in the Commissary Department, 
and was at present disposed of in a com- 
fortable railroad agency. James K. Polk 
and Henry Clay (all Mr. Norgood’s sons 
were named for distinguished men) had 
been, successively, enrolling officers in the 
Conscript Department and clerks in the 
Inspector’s Office, and were now waiting 
for an opportunity to serve their country 
in some other safe and easy capacity. 
George Washington Monroe Norgood, one 
of Mary’s cousins, had just been appointed 
drill-sergeant at the State Camp of In- 
struction, while Mr. Montmorency Boodle, 
her brother-in-law, was quietly shelved on 
a comfortable berth in the civil service; 
and the paternal Norgood himself, Plato 
Plantagenet by name, was pensioned off 
in the county clerk’s office at South Am- 
bury. Ill-natured people hinted that Mr. 
Bruen had reasons of his own for getting 
this worthy gentleman into an office that 
would require his close attendance in 
South Ambury ; but Mr. Plato Plantage- 
net, like all bores, by profession, was 
indefatigable in his calling, and, come 
what might, would always contrive to 
dine every Sunday at Sandowne. Now, 


Mr. Bruen was peculiarly sensitive to 
bores, and, as a general thing, he had very 
little compunction about getting rid of 
them, without regard to their feelings or 
the requirements of good manners, and 
his awful behavior in this respect was 
the theme of innumerable curtain-lectures 
from his prim and punctilious wife. But 
Mr. Norgood was not a man to be got rid 
of on any terms short of actually kicking 
him out of your house ; you might yawn 
in his face, and fairly knock him down 
with hints, — Mr. Norgood was impervious 
alike to signs and innuendoes, and would 
sit for hours listening to his own platitudes 
with that air of self-satisfaction which 
characterizes the first-class bore. Like 
all social nuisances, he was disposed to 
make himself very much at home in other 
people’s houses, and would light his pipe 
in Mrs. Bruen’s drawing-room, and help 
himself to the daily paper before any one 
else had read it, — an enormity which he 
contrived to aggravate stUl further by 
always reading aloud the very things that 
nobody wanted to hear. But he was 
Harry’s father-in-law, and poor Harry 
was dead, and so the good old folks en- 
dured him with silent resignation. Take 
it all in all, there never was a family so af- 
flicted with kin-in-law — out-laws, George 
irreverently termed them — as these un- 
lucky Bruens, and the worst of it was 
that, like the locusts of Egypt, there 
seemed to be no end to their swarms. 

As Mr. Bruen had no children of his 
own, it was long a subject of anxious 
speculation to the curious what disposi- 
tion he would make of his property. For 
a long time the chances of heirship seemed 
pretty equally divided between his name- 
sake, George Dalton, and his niece, Claude 
Harfleur, the younger sister of Buth 
and grand-daughter of Randolph Bruen ; 
a beautiful girl, to whom he was devo- 
tedly attached. George Dalton was the 
son of his wife’s sister, and therefore not 
related by blood to Mr. Bruen himself, 
nor had he ever taken any special pains 
to cultivate the unaccountable fancy the 
old gentleman had conceived for him 
from his earliest childhood. He had 
thwarted his uncle’s plans concerning 
him time and again without ever losing 
favor, and just at the moment when his 
excesses and dissipation had reached such 
a height that everybody was expecting 
him to be kicked out of the house and dis- 
inherited forever, the old gentleman for- 
mally adopted him as his heir, and made 
a will leaving him everything, with the 
exception of a moderate provision for the 


I 


FAMILY CONNECTIONS. 


49 


deformed boy, Bruen Ilarfleur, and a 
small legacy to Claude. It Avas thought 
by some that he hoped to see things made 
even by the marriage of his two favorites ; 
but if so, he proved a bungling match- 
maker, and George, with his usual per- 
versity, exhibited an unaccountable indif- 
ference to the girl, though she was a 
beauty and an heiress, independent of her 
uncle, and half the young men in the 
country were ready to break their necks 
for her. 

George Dalton was altogether an excep- 
tional character. Ilis father, the lion. 
Henry Baron Dalton, had held the high- 
est judicial position in the State during 
the greater part of his life, and left a name 
behind of which his descendants might 
well be proud. Being a man of the 
strictest integrity, he had never taken ad- 
vantage of the many opportunities his 
position afforded of enriching himself at 
the public expense, and as he had no pri- 
vate fortune, it was with the greatest diffi- 
culty that he could sustain the dignity of 
his position on the meagre salary attached 
to it. Mr. Bruen, who was sincerely at- 
tached to his brother-in-law, offered to set 
his two boys up in life, and invited George, 
at the age of eighteen, to take charge of a 
fine plantation, Avith the understanding 
that Avhen he came of age it should be his 
own ; but the young man had a strong 
predilection for the military profession, 
and rejected his uncle’s offer for a cadet- 
ship at West Point, that his father’s polit- 
ical influence procured for him. It was 
here he first met Malvern, and began the 
friendship that Avas to last through both 
their Ih^es. 

Though ahvays a little inclined to dis- 
sipation, he gave evidence of the highest 
order of talent, and graduated with dis- 
tinction in spite of himself. On the break- 
ing out of the civil war, he served through 
the opening campaign with such success 
that his friends were predicting for him a 
most brilliant career, when suddenly, in 
the midst of these fair promises, he dashed 
to the ground all the bright hopes built 
upon him, and, abandoning himself to a 
career of the most reckless dissipation and 
debauchery, seemed to have lost not only 
the generous ambition that once fired 
him, but all self-respect, all regard for 
common decency. 

About this time his father died, bowed 
down by the grief and disappointment 
his tAvo sons had caused him, and George, 
rejecting offers of promotion that Avere 
made him on account of his gallant con- 
duct in a recent battle, Avhere he had 


been terribly wounded, yielded to the 
wishes of his anxious mother, and pas- 
sively allowed himself to be shelved as 
an invalid on an easy berth at South 
Ambury. 

Mrs. Dalton, who had gone to live with 
her sister after the death of her husband, 
was a quiet, prim old lady, whose moral 
and intellectual creed consisted of three 
articles : first, she believed in her son 
George ; secondly, she believed in the 
grandeur and glory of the Del aval fam- 
ily, of which she was a member ; and, 
thirdly, she believed in the inherent 
superiority of the Carolina aristocracy 
over all the rest of mankind. She Avould 
ahvays contrive to let you know, before 
you had talked Avith her ten minutes, 
that she was a South Carolinian and a 
Delaval by birth •, after Avhich, resting 
upon her laurels, she would subside into 
dignified silence. She Avas happier than, 
most of us in being allowed to remain 
unshaken in her faith, for George Dalton, 
whatever may have been his faults, had’ 
the grace never to appear intoxicated in 
his mother’s presence. 

As for his uncle, the old gentleman had. 
wit enough to appreciate George’s ex- 
traordinary talents, and affection or ob~ 
stinacy blinded him to the rest. He was 
so well pleased, moreover, at having the 
young man in a position that seemed to- 
fiivor his pet matrimonial scheme, by 
bringing the tAvo young people constantly 
together, that he never stopped to inquire 
into the sudden change of his nephew’a 
conduct, or the motives for his extraor- 
dinary abandonment of a career that 
seemed to offer such brilliant prospects^ 
He did not even fret himself, as most 
methodical old men would have done,.. 
about George’s neglect of his business im 
South Ambury, but rather Avinked a^ his 
frequent absences, and encouraged him 
in his practice of filling the house with a 
lot of rollicking young officers, whom old 
George Bruen’ s rare wines and good 
cheer easily tempted from the tiresome 
routine of a garrison town. Indeed, the 
generous hospitality of its OAvner made 
Sandowne a favorite resort for all the 
young people of the neighborhood. 
Claude Harfleur spent half her time 
there, and what with the visitors she at- 
tracted and the company George brought, 
Avhat Avith the various incursions of Nor- 
goods and their connections, to say no- 
thing of numerous other friends of the 
family who Avere constantly turning up 
in every direction and coming to spend a 
few days or Aveeks or months at San- 


50 


A FAMILY SECRET, 


downe, the house was kept in a perpetual 
uproar, and Audley Malvern had not 
stumbled upon a state dinner-party, or 
other extraordinary gathering, as he at 
first supposed, but upon the Bruen 
household in its normal state. 


CHAPTER X. 

THE CREDIT OF THE FAMILY IS IN DANGER. 

Mr. Bruen having satisfactorily dis- 
posed of his guest, as already related, re- 
turned to his niece, and remained some 
time in close conversation with her. 
After the lapse of about an hour he 
came out of the room with a very dis- 
turbed countenance and began to call for 
his wife. Whenever Mr. Bruen was 
much disturbed about anything two pe- 
culiarities of his always asserted them- 
selves : namely, his dependence on his 
wife, and a certain bad habit of profane 
swearing, which he had acquired from 
that old pagan ancestor to whom his 
early youth had been confided. The 
counteracting influence of a pious old 
darkey, who had been a sort of moral 
“ Dominie Sampson” to him during his 
boyhood, and the subsequent training of 
his wife, had so far modified the habit, 
that he never gave way to it except 
under strong excitement, and then always 
tapered oflP what a euphuist might term 
his “ objectionable phrases” with apolo- 
gies and professions of amendment, 
Avhich, let us hope, were not all mere 
flagstones in that route which the old 
adage tells us is paved with good reso- 
lutmns. 

Mrs. Bruen was at the “Quarter,” 
looking after some sick negroes, and had 
heard nothing of the new arrival till her 
husband, who had gone in search of her, 
met her in the path as she was returning, 
and broke the news with the abrupt ex- 
clamation, — 

“G — d d — n me, Margaret, she’s come 
back !” 

Mrs. Bruen looked at him rebukingly, 
and asked, in a gentle voice, “ Who?” 

“ I beg your pardon ; I didn’t mean to 
say it, Margaret,” replied the old gentle- 
man, answering the look rather than the 
query, “ and I intend to quit it from this 
minute, d — n me if I don’t; but you 
can’t expect a man to say nothing, Mar- 
garet, when she’s come back on a sudden 


like this, and looking so like Nettie you 
would think it was her ghost I and it’ll 
set all the infernal gossips — may the 
Lord forgive me for swearing ! — to wag- 
ging their tongues again.” 

Mrs. Bruen started. 

“ Can it be Ruth you mean?” she said, 
suddenly turning and grasping him by 
the arm. 

“Why, who else should I mean?” he 
answered, wiping the perspiration from 
his brow ; “ come back after all these 
years, just as I thought this miserable 
affair was locked up forever, by her own 
voluntar}^ act, safe in the walls of a con- 
vent. I thought, from Julian Ilarfleurs 
assurances, that she had fully set her 
head on being a nun, and that nothing 
could shake her in that lucky resolution ; 
but I find, on talking it over with her, 
that, so far from ever having had a no- 
tion of that sort, she says she has been 
kept there all this time against her will, 
and resents bitterly what she calls her 
cruel banishment, though the Lord Al- 
might I beg your pardon, Marga- 

ret, but He does know I never had a 
thought of making her do anything 
against her will. I thought it was a 
lucky thing' for the family she had de- 
termined to shut herself up so, but, by 
my soul, I wouldn’t ’a crooked my finger 
to force her against her will. I tell you 
what, Margaret, I don’t understand it at 
all, and I begin to think you may have 
been right, after all, in your doubts 
about Julian.” 

“ I never quite trusted him,” said Mrs. 
Bruen, looking grave, “ though he talked 
so fair, and made such a show of having 
the child’s interest at heart. But we 
must not judge him hastily ; he may 
have been acting for the best, according 
to his judgment. We are all liable to 
err, and I think, my dear, you and I 
have done so in not looking to this mat- 
ter sooner ourselves. My conscience has 
sometimes misgiven me, lest we were not 
doing by the child exactly as Nettie 
would have had us do. You know, Mr. 
Bruen, she loved this one better than all 
the rest, and her last words were, ‘Uncle 
Bruen, take care of my little Ruth.’ AVe 
had no right to delegate the trust to an- 
other, — especially when the interests of 
that other, no matter how honorable we 
believed him, were in conflict with hers. 
I doubt that sending the child off* among 
strangers was exactly what Nettie would 
have meant by taking care of her. You 
remember how the poor little thing took 
on when we first sent her off. It goes to 


THE CREDIT OF THE FAMILY IS IN DANGER, 


51 


my heart now to think of her tears, and 
you know she always was afraid of 
Julian.” 

Mr. Bruen winced a little under these 
reminiscences. 

We may have been wrong,” he said, 
“ but I call on God to witness that I did 
what I thought best for the child, as well 
as for the credit of the family. I wanted 
to keep her in ignorance of that misera- 
ble story, and she couldn’t have stayed 
here without learning, sooner or later, 
what it would darken her life forever to 
know, — what has darkened the lives of 
us all. You know I only consented to 
let her go, at first, as a sort of experi- 
ment, with the understanding that she 
was to return after a time, if she chose. 
When Julian told me that rigmarole 
about her unalterable determination to 
become a nun, I made my mind easy, 
thinking it the best arrangement for all 
parties, but I never dreamed that she 
was forced against her will. By Go — G — 
goodness, I mean, Margaret, I don’t un- 
derstand it at all, and I haven’t told you 
the strangest part yet.” 

He drew closer to her, and related 
something in a low voice as they walked 
along. Mrs. Bruen’ s countenance be- 
trayed signs of deep emotion as she lis- 
tened, but she did not interrupt him in 
his narrative. 

“Are you sure,” she asked, in an agi- 
tated voice, when he had finished, “ that 
it is the same ring Nettie lost?” 

“The very same, by Jove ! as sure as 
I never mean to swear another oath. I 
had it in my hand ; I read the inscrip- 
tion ; I saw the wonderful jewel, and 
you know there is no mistaking that.” 

“It’s the strangest thing I ever heard 
of,” said Mrs. Bruen. “ Poor Nettie was 
always a little superstitious about the 
loss of that ring : it disappeared so un- 
accountably ; and you know who gave it 
to her, and what news came soon after. 
She always looked upon it as a sort of. 
omen.” 

“ It does look as if the cursed thing had 
a spell on it,” said Mr. Bruen. “ It was 
an evil day for Nettie when she first put 
it on her finger ; an evil day for us all ; 
and I fear it bodes no good that we have 
laid eyes on the ill-gotten jewel agam.” 

“ It has come back as mysteriously as 
it disappeared,” said Mrs. Bruen. “ You 
say it fell into Ruth’s hands ” 

“ Precisely as I have told you,” said Mr. 
Bruen, interrupting her*, “at least such 
is her account of it, and the girl don’t look 
as if she would lie ; no, no, there’s no- 


thing bad in the girl, though she has been 
brought up by a set of scoundrelly priests. 
Hang me, now I come to think of it, if 
there is any mischief out, they are as 
likely to ])e at the bottom of it as any- 
body. Who knows now but they have 
sent her here to black-mail us?” 

“ Nonsense, my dear,” replied Mrs. 
Bruen, who had a sound, clear head of 
her own *, “ how should they know any- 
thing about it themselves? If there's 
mischief out, in my opinion Julian Ilar- 
fleur is much more likely to be at the 
bottom of it than anybody else.” 

“But, Margai*et,” persisted the old 
gentleman, “ you can’t think he has a 
hand in her coming back, — he is the last 
person in the world to wish for that.” 

“ It is not her coming back that I regret 
now so much as having ever suffered her 
to be sent away,” said Mrs. Bruen, quietly. 
“It would have been better, for her to 
stay here and grow old with the shame 
her life perpetuates. If she had never 
gone away people would have got used to 
her by this time, and gossip would have 
died out of its oavu accord *, but now this 
sudden return, like a resurrection from 
the dead, will drag the old scandal from 
its grave, and people will mouth and 
whisper and pry worse than if it had 
never been buried.” 

“ If we had known all,” said Mr. Bruen, 
meekly ; “ but who ever dreamed of her 
coming back to upset our plans after she 
had, as we believed, shut herself up of 
her own free will in a convent. From the 
way Julian talked I thought the whole 
business was settled forever. I tell you, 
Margaret, there has been something wrong 
from the first, but I can’t make it out, I 
can’t make it out;” and he rested the 
forefinger of his left hand against the 
left side of his nose, — an attitude pecu4iar 
to him when his reflections were at all 
perturbed, — and walked on for several 
steps in silence. Mrs. Bruen was the first 
to speak. 

“ Shall you ask any explanation of 
Julian ?” she said. 

Mr. Bruen hesitated a moment, as if 
reflecting what to say, then answered, 
slowly, — 

“ No ; I reckon we had better wait for 
things to develop themselves. Julian has 
always acted so well, and we owe so much 
to his magnanimity, that I can’t find it in 
my heart to suspect him. He may have 
been mistaken like the rest of us, or some 
of those crafty priests may have deceived 
him, but I cannot believe he meant any 
harm.” 


52 


A FAMILY SECRET. 


Mrs. Bruen pressed her lips together 
with a significant expression, but offered 
no comment. 

And the girl herself?” she asked. 

“ Innocent as a dove,” answered Mr. 
Bruen, unhesitatingly, “ and more in the 
dark than any of us as to where the 
wrong lies; but I can see she is preju- 
diced against Julian.” 

“ And does she know, — do you intend 
to tell her anything?” 

“No, no, not yet; she’ll find out all 
too soon, any way ; we had better keep 
her in blessed ignorance as long as we 
can. I rather like the girl, what little I 
have seen of her, — she is frank and high- 
toned, though I fear she has a good deal 
of temper ; but we must be kind to her 
for Nettie’s sake.” 

“ Yes, yes, we must be kind to Nettie’s 
child,” said Mrs. Bruen, softly. 

They had now reached the door of the 
room where Buth was waiting, and Mrs. 
Bruen paused with her hand on the latch. 

“ Have you told Claude?” she asked. 

“ No ; I wanted you to see her first,” 
he answered ; “ but I’ll go for Claude 
now. Poor child ! it is a pity this should 
have happened just as she is blooming 
into womanhood ; but never mind, when 
she’s once safe married to George all will 
be right ; that boy ’ll sustain the credit of 
the family against all odds.” 

Cheered by this consoling reflection, he 
hurried away with a lighter step, while 
Mrs. Bruen heaved a little sigh, and, open- 
ing the door, disappeared into her niece’s 
room. 


CHAPTEB XL 

AUDLEY CONFORMS TO THE CUSTOMS OF 
THE COUNTRY. 

In the mean time, George and his 
companions, having finished their pota- 
tions, began to think of returning to the 
drawing-room, where the rest of the com- 
pany had assembled for the evening ; and 
Audley, after making some necessary 
changes in his toilet, underwent one of 
those wholesale presentations to a lot of 
people whose names and faces he could 
no more remember than he could repeat 
in order all the words in Webster’s Dic- 
tionary. As for himself, the appearance 
of a handsome and elegant stranger in a 
room full of women never fiiils to make 
an impression, and if Audley had been a 


bashful man, or one at all dubious of his 
personal advantages, he might well have 
quailed before the volley of bright glances 
directed towards him. 

The Norgoods were out in full force, 
but luckily the veteran, Plato Plantage- 
net, had just button-holed the parson of 
the parish for a theological disquisition, 
while his energetic spouse had taken in 
tow an eligible widower with a view to one 
of her daughters, so that Audley escaped 
their clutches for the present, and fell 
into the gentler hands of George Dalton’s 
mother, who was doing the honors of the 
house during the temporary absence of her 
sister from the drawing-room. She was 
a prim, stately old lady, solemn and grand 
as the Pyramid of Gizeh or the snow-clad 
summits of Mont Blanc, and her stiff 
white frills and ruffles appeared scarcely 
less frigid and unapproachable. She re- 
ceived Audley, however, with the gracious 
consideration due to a friend of “ my son 
George.” 

“Just from the front, I see, colonel,’^ 
she said, glancing at his bandaged arm, 
— prima facie evidence, in those days, 
that a man was, if not the hero of a hun- 
dred battles, at least one of the hundred 
heroes of a battle. 

“No,” he replied. “I have, on the 
contrary, passed the last two years in 
most inglorious seclusion. I am but just 
released from a long imprisonment, and 
have been spending the first few days of 
freedom with my mother and sisters, near 
Charleston.” 

“Charleston?” repeated Mrs. Dalton, 
with an air of increasing respect ; “ then 
you are a Carolinian ?” 

“No, I am a Virginian,” replied Mal- 
vern, with emphasis ; “ but my family 
have been living in Carolina since the 
war.” 

“Oh, a Virginian,” returned Mrs. Dal- 
ton, deprecatingly. “Well, there are 
some very nice people in Virginia. I 
remember, now, Malvern is a Virginia 
name. I have often heard my son speak 
of the family. You were traveling with 
him, I believe, Ydien the war broke out?” 

“ Yes ; we went over Europe together, 
and were messmates at West Point be- 
sides ; indeed, George and I have always 
been to each other as brothers.” He 
stopped short, and an uneasy expression 
came into his face as he pronounced the 
last word. 

Mrs. Dalton’s attention was now claimed 
by some of the other guests, and Audley 
had leisure to attend to his left-hand 
neighbor, a pretty little black-eyed wo- 


AUDLEY CONFORMS TO THE CUSTOMS OF THE COUNTRY, 53 


man, in widow’s weeds, to whom he had 
been presented on his first entrance ; but, 
as he had not heard her name, nor been 
initiated, as yet, into all the ramifications 
of the Briien and Dalton connection, he 
did not suspect what the reader has 
probabry guessed already, that this de- 
mure little widow was no other than 
Geojcge’s sister-in-law, Mary Dalton. 
Mary’s widowhood was not of the se- 
verely unapproachable type, but rather 
of the tender, melancholy, confiding sort, 
which does not repel any of the gentle 
consolations that sympathetic natures 
may feel inclined to bestow. Smiling 
blandly as Audley turned towards her, 
she opened the conversation by asking, 
with an air of bewitching solicitude, if 
his wound was very painful. 

“ No wound can be painful to me,^’ he 
replied, gallantly, that was received in 
the service of a lady.” 

“ A lady ! Dear me, and what could a 
lady have to do with anything so dread- 
ful?” asked Mary, opening wide her 
black eyes. 

Audley explained briefly, and without 
mentioning names, the circumstances of 
the accident that had come so near cost- 
ing Miss Harfleur her life. 

“Dear me, how very dreadful!” said 
Mary, when he had finished. “ And was 
the lady very pretty?” with a sly glance 
at the mirror over the mantel-piece. 

“ I thought so until to-night,” replied 
Audley, fixing his eyes deliberately upon 
the widow’s face, lie had observed the 
glance at the mirror, and guessed exactly 
how far he might go. 

Mary blushed and dropped her eyes. 

“ You men do say such naughty things,” 
she answered. 

“And yet we dare not always say the 
half we feel,” he replied, without remov- 
ing his eyes from her face. 

“ Now, Colonel Malvern, you ought to 
be ashamed of yourself to talk to me so,” 
said Mary, glancing down at her weeds ; 
and in her agitation she disarranged the 
folds of her black dress so as to displa}^ 
the tips of two of the prettiest little slip- 
pers in the world. 

This promising flirtation was nipped 
in the bud by the entrance of Mrs. 
Bruen, in company with a young lady 
whose appearance so fascinated Audley’s 
attention that the widow’s little ma- 
noeuvre was entirely lost upon him. She 
was a soft, voluptuous brunette, richly 
dressed, and round, rosy, and luscious as 
a ripe peach. A greater contrast to the 
classic, spirituelle style he had so much 


admired in Buth could hardly be imag- 
ined ; and yet, this sparkling, gushing, 
showy beauty was no other than Ruth’s 
own sister, Claude Harfleur. 

As Audley had not yet been presented 
to his hostess, he left the widow’s side to 
go through with that necessary formality, 
and then, in accordance with the estalo- 
lished laws of nature, by which all the 
men in a room necessarily gravitate to- 
wards the prettiest woman there, he 
found himself one of the little circle of 
adorers that had gathered round Claude 
Harfleur. 

There was something about Audley, 
either his distingue air, his handsome 
face, his captivating manners, or all com- 
bined, that seemed to be irresistible with 
women, among whom Claude Harfleur 
was no exception in the favor with which 
she regarded him. He was received with 
such marked preference that the rival 
claimants for her notice dropped away, 
one by one, leaving him master of the 
situation. 

“ You cannot imagine, Miss Harfleur,” 
he began, placing himself at her side, 
“ what a pleasure it is for a man who 
has been condemned to the society of his 
own sex almost exclusively for two years 
to find himself among ladies once more. 
It is like emerging from Central Africa 
or Southern Patagonia into the regions 
of civilization.” 

“ I am glad to hear you say so,” she 
replied, with a smile, “ or I might have 
suspected that you had been corrupted 
by the example of your friend. George 
Dalton never notices any but old women, 
and he acts as if he thought the whole 
sex an intolerable bore.” 

“ Ha,” thought Audley, unversed as 
he was in the genealogies of the families 
represented at Sandowne, “ this is what 
I call free and easy, calling a fellow by 
his Christian name like that. I don’t 
wonder George is disposed to shy off.” 
Then he said aloud, with a polite bow, 
“ Miss Harfleur, I am sure, could convert 
him from that opinion if she chose.” 

“I?” cried Claude, breaking into a 
little silvery laugh. “Why, he has as 
good as rejected me already.” 

Audley gave her a look of mock com- 
miseration. 

“ Yes,” she continued, laughing, “Uncle 
Bruen has been trying to make a match 
between George and me ever since I was 
born, and the wretch absolutely won’t 
have me !” 

“ Can’t you allow him to choose a sub- 
stitute ?” 


54 


A FAMILY SECRET, 


“ No, I shall do that for myself ; he 
don’t deserve such grace. In fact, I can’t 
think of a revenge that’s black enough to 
take upon him ; can you help me? Sug- 
gest something very diabolical.” 

“ The Avorst I can think of is to let 
him have his own Avay, and marry some- 
body else.” 

‘‘ I am not sure George would mind 
that at all. At least, I am sure he would 
not if he could make his own choice in 
regard to the somebody else, for do you 
know,” she continued, lowering her voice 
and speaking more seriously, “ I suspect 
that George has long been deeply and 
hopelessly in love ! You have really 
known him longer than I, for 1 believe 
you were friends in your boyhood, and I 
have often heard him speak of you as 
one who shared his confidence in a 
greater degree than any other living 
being; you, therefore, can tell, no doubt, 
if my surmise is correct, that George has 
met with some disappointment which he 
never has and never Avill get over.” 

Audley was strangely disconcerted by 
this appeal. His brow' suddenly clouded, 
and his manner betrayed evident signs 
of embarrassment, but he retained his 
self-possession, and playfully eluded a 
direct reply. 

“ I think it very likely your surmise is 
correct,” he said, looking into Claude’s 
face with a significant smile, “but par- 
don me if I express a suspicion that you 
are much better informed than I as to 
the state of George’s affections.” 

“ I'hen you cherish a suspicion that 
does great injustice to both George and 
myself,” she answered, in a tone wdiich 
indicated that she did not like to be 
bantered on this subject,, “and I must 
beg you to lay aside jesting for awhile 
and l)elieve me w'hen I tell you that 
George and I know each other far too 
well for anything of the sort that you 
are hinting at, and I am convinced, 
moreover, that he was passionately and, 
I fear, hopelessly in Ioa'c long before he 
knew me, — that is, before I was old 
enough to be thought of.” 

“ I would like to know what ladies 
consider evidence on this point,” said 
Audley, adroitly changing the drift of 
the conversation. “ May I ask upon 
what you ground your belief in regard to 
George?” 

“ Yes, certainly. In the first place, be- 
cause he has never fallen in love with 
me,” answered Claude, wdth bewitching 
audacity. 

“ A most conclusive argument,” cried 


Audley, laughing, “that settles the ques- 
tion beyond all dispute.” 

“In the next place,” continued Claude, 
“ he has such an indifferent, preoccupied 
air. He never tries to make himself 
agreeable in society, and is altogether 
perfectly odious.” 

That is a love S 3 miptom I never 
heard of before,” said Audley, “ thgt it 
makes people odious.” 

“ Except to each other, of course,” re- 
plied Claude. “ They ahvays look as if 
they thought everybody else a bore, 
while, in reality, it is they who are a 
bore to everybody else, like George now. 
Just look at hini, isn’t his manner posi- 
tively airocious?” 

Audley turned his eyes to where George 
sat, cornered by the eldest Miss Norgood, 
Avith a look of resigned endurance on his 
face so rueful, and yet so comical, that 
Audley could not forbear laughing. 

“ And only think,” continued Claude, 
pouting, “ I have been begging him for 
three Aveeks to ride at the tournament 
and he won’t do it, though he knows he 
is the best horseman in the county. 
What a pity you are disabled I” she 
added, glancing at his bandages *, “ you 
should ride and wear my colors if you 
were well.” 

“Now you make me regret, for the 
first time, a wound received in the ser- 
vice of a lady,” said Audley ; “ but it 
can hardly be a matter of great concern 
to you, who doubtless have a score of 
knights eager to carry your colors.” 

“Oh, yes; there are a dozen or more 
going to ride for me,” said Claude, care- 
lessly, “but I AA^ould like to number 
among my cavaliers one Avhom George 
pronounces the most accomplished cav'^- 
alry officer in the army. George is superb 
himself on horseback, but whenever I 
admire his skill, he says, ‘ Oh, but 3'ou 
just ought to see my friend Malvern.’ ” 

“Unfortunately, a man seldom answers 
to what his friends think of him,” said 
Malvern, with a smile, “and it is Avell, 
perhaps, for my reputation that I cannot 
submit myself to the ordeal of your criti- 
cism 5 but Avhen does the tournament come 
off? I may, possibly, be well in time.” 

“No, you cannot on any account; next 
Thursday is the day; and, as George 
says, you are to stay with him till ready 
for service again. We don’t intend that 
you shall get well for six months to come 
if we can help it.” 

“ Thank you for your amiable inhu- 
manity,” said Audley; “you almost make 
me wish I could break my other arm.” 


A BEND SINISTER AND A HALTER. 


55 


The friendly dialo^^ue was interrupted 
here by a general stir in the room as the 
company began to disperse for the night. 
Audley, like most persons when intro- 
duced all at once to a roomful of 
strangers, had got the names and faces 
of the people about him into inextricable 
confusion, an effect which his previous 
potations by no means tended to counter- 
act, for no man, of ordinarily temperate 
habits, could keep pace with an inveterate 
soaker like George without getting his 
brain more or less fuddled. He was per- 
plexed, moreover, by a certain freedom 
of manner prevailing around him, which, 
to one ignorant of the relationship exist- 
ing between the various individuals that 
made up the bulk of the company, did 
appear, to say the least, a little odd ; nor 
were his ideas at all cleared up when he 
saw George Dalton, just before leaving 
the room, coolly imprint a kiss upon the 
widow’s lips, and then prciceed to repeat 
the operation upon Claude. The liquors 
Audley had taken began to operate pow- 
erfully by this time, so that a proceeding 
which, at any other moment, would have 
naturally explained itself, seemed now 
attributable only to the peculiar customs 
of the country. It was near Christmas, 
that time of universal unbending. He had 
always heard, besides, that Georgia so- 
ciety was remarkable for its freedom and 
absence of constraint, and, accordingly, 
since he had no insurmountable objections 
to kissing a pretty woman whenever he 
got a chance, he determined to follow the 
sage old proverb, which tells us that in 
Rome it is best to do as the Romans do. 
Acting upon this discreet conclusion he 
kissed the widow behind the door, and, 
encouraged by the success of the experi- 
ment, was making direct for Claude, when 
he was suddenly hustled out of the room 
by his friend. 


CHAPTER XII. 

A BEND SINISTER AND A HALTER. 

‘‘What the devil do you mean,” cried 
George Dalton, angrily, when he had got 
his friend into the hall, “ taking liberties 
like that in a respectable house?” 

“ Why, what the devil do you mean?” 
replied Audley, shaking George’s grasp 
from his arm. “ I wonder if you didn’t 
set me the example?” 


“Example? Thunder! And what’s to 
prevent a man from kissing his cousin 
and his sister-in-law if he chooses?” 

“His who? Then I have played the 
very devil !” Audley was sobered in an 
instant as a sudden comprehension of the 
situation flashed upon his mind. “I’ll 
tell you what, George,” he continued, 
grinding his boot-heel upon the floor, 
“it’s that confounded liquor. I always 
told you that no man could drink with 
you and maintain his self-respect.” 

George burst out laughing. “ Oho, 
that’s the game, is it?” he cried, leading 
the way down the hall. “So we’ve got 
you christened at last, my boy, and upon 
my word you’ve begun right royally ; so 
come along, and let us finish the good 
work. Halloo there, old Bacchus!” pop- 
ping his head in at the dining-room door 
as they passed, “ bring half a dozen bot- 
tles of champagne and a lot of the gov- 
ernor’s best cigars to my room. Get along, 
you old scoundrel, quick !” 

“ Look here, George,” said Audley, as 
soon as he could edge in a word, “ you 
may drink yourself to a sot if you 
please, but the devil another drop do I 
take with you. What sort of people are 
you here, any way, and what the mis- 
chief is going on in the house? Have I 
stumbled upon a national exposition or a 
world’s fair?” 

“ Not exactly,” said George, laughing. 
“We always have a crowd of people 
here. The old folks like it, and the 
people that come seem to like it, and so 
we always contrive, somehow or other, 
to have the house full.” 

“AVe?” said Audley, repeating the 
pronoun ; “you talk as if you were head 
partner in the concern.” 

“ Oh, I’ve been adopted, you see,” said 
George, in a comical tone ; “ and a deuced 
fine thing it is, Audley, to be adopted. 
Mr. Bruen is my uncle, — that is, his wife 
is my aunt, and the old gentleman has 
taken a deuced fancy to me, because I 
bear his name and am such a credit to it, 
you know.” 

“ Oh, then that accounts for it all. I 
was wondering how the devil you came 
to be so much at home here, ordering 
things about as if you were Grand Mo- 
gul. But, upon my word, you are in 
clover, old boy ; and there are no rival 
candidates for adoption to bother you?” 

“No,” said George, opening the door 
to a large, comfortable, but not very or- 
derly apartment ; “ and as I used no arts 
to gain the position, 1 use none to keep 
it. The Harfleur children, I suppose, 


56 


A FAMILY SECEET. 


would naturally come first in the line of 
succession ; but the s^overnor appreciates 
merit, you see,” he added, laughing; 

and besides, Claude is only a girl, 
while for Bruen, poor little devil, not 
even an heir presumptive could grudge 
any advantage he is likely to gain.” 

‘‘Bruen,” repeated Audley; “ that^s 
another promising namesake, I sup- 
pose ?” 

“ Yes,” replied the other, drawing a 
couple of easy-chairs to the fire; “and 
appropriately called, too, for he’s as 
bearish a young cub as you’ll find any 
day. Diogenes was a philanthropist to 
him, and he seems to have singled out 
his own family, particularly his father 
and sister, as special objects of aversion. 
The only beings he was ever known to 
be civil to are my uncle and his wife and 
an old black hag they call Aunt Chloe, 
whom the negroes all dread as a witch.” 

“ There must be a touch of insanity 
about him,” said Audley. 

“ A touch of satanity,” returned the 
other. “His head’s as level as any 
young chap's in Christendom. How- 
ever,” he added, “ there is some excuse 
for the little bear, too, for his own father 
treats him like a brute. He was thrown 
from a carriage when only two years 
old, and injured so as to deform him 
horribly, and make him a cripple for 
life. Julian Harfleur, like a cold-hearted, 
unnatural monster that he is, seemed 
after this not only to lose all affection for 
his son, but to conceive a violent disgust 
and aversion to him. I believe he ac- 
tually hates the poor, misshapen creature 
for being his child, and is ashamed of 
the deformity he ought to pity. They 
say Bruen was a beautiful child before 
the accident, and that Mr. Harffeur, who 
is the proudest, most ambitious man I 
ever knew, was so overjoyed at his birth 
that he was planning schemes of future 
glory for the boy before he was out of 
his cradle. But his affection could not 
outlive his pride, and he seems now to 
regard the boy as the author of his dis- 
appointment, rather than the chief suf- 
ferer by it. As soon as it became 
apparent that his deformity was incura- 
ble, Bruen was utterly neglected by his 
father, and left to be brought up as he 
might by the negroes. Old Aunt Chloe 
was the only person that concerned her- 
self much alDout him, and I don’t know 
what would have become of the poor 
little devil if my uncle, who is really the 
tenderest-hearted old chap in existence, 
had not discovered his forlorn condition, 


and taken him in hand. He has been so 
soured by his father’s treatment that he 
is a perfect little savage; and fortunately 
his cynical tastes incline him much to 
solitude, for his temper is such that, with 
all the compassion one may feel for his 
misfortunes, it is almost impossible to 
endure him.” 

“ Surely his beautiful sister is kind to 
him,” said Audley, shocked at the story. 

“ Claude would be, now, I suppose, if 
he would let her. She was too much of 
a child when the accident first happened 
to appreciate the boy’s peculiar claims 
upon her kindness, and she has grown 
up in the habit of seeing him neglected 
until she'does not realize the atrocity of it.” 

“You surely don’t mean to say that 
such a magnificent creature is without 
feeling?” exclaimed Audley, — and the 
thought of Ruth, even when a little 
child, the ministering angel of a plague- 
stricken city, flashed upon his mind. 

“ No,” said George, “ I don’t think 
Claude Harfleur has a bad heart, but it 
is not in human nature to stand her 
training and not be somewhat spoilt by 
it. She has been taught to regard her- 
self as the centre round which the little 
world about her revolves ; the pride, the 
hopes, the ambition of the family, are all 
centred on her, and she knows it. Being 
such a beauty and heiress, she has, of 
course, hosts of admirers, — in fact, she is 
so much the fashion in this part of the 
world that no young fellow has received 
his passport into good society until he 
has made love to her. She made her 
d4hut in Richmond last winter, and 
turned th^heads of all the Government’ 

“ She is certainly very beautiful,” said 
Malvern, absently, for he could not help 
thinking how different had been the lot 
of the two sisters, and it seemed to him 
that the lonely, neglected life of the one 
was a reproach to the brilliant career of 
the other. 

“Yes,” continued George, ignorant of 
what was passing in his friend’s mind, 
“ that is the universal verdict of those 
who see her for the first time ; but it is not 
a beauty that grows upon you and twines 
itself about your heart till — till it plays 
the very devil with you,” said George, 
getting quite adrift in his little current 
of sentiment. 

“ But like the sun, it so dazzles you at 
the first glance that you are blinded by 
its radiance,” said Audley, with a smile, 
coming to the rescue. 

“ Yes ; and like the sun, it makes many 
a fatal stroke.” 


A BEND SINISTER AND A HALTER. 


57 


“ It doesn’t seem to have hit you yet.” 

“No,” said George, in a lower, sadder 
tone ; “ the man who has once loved Julia 
Malvern carries a charm against the 
fascinations of every other woman.” 

“George, my boy,” said Audley, be- 
coming serious in his turn, “ haven’t you 
got over your foolish fancy for that foolish 
girl yet?” 

“ It is not a fancy, Audley, or I might 
hope to conquer it.” 

“ Let me advise you to try, George,” 
said the other, rising and laying his hand 
gently on the shoulder of his friend. 
“ You will not mistake my words, George, 
for we have always been more than friends 
to each other, and you know there is not 
a fellow in the world that I would like 
better for a brother-in-law, but I tell you 
plainly it’s no use. Julia is my sister, 
and very dear to me, but there is one 
grave fault in her character to which 
affection cannot blind me : she is thor- 
oughly eaten up with ambition and 
worldliness, — you can judge to what ex- 
tent when I tell you that she has made 
up her mind to marry old General Bag- 
pipe.” 

“ Bagpipe !” cried George, with a start. 
“You don’t mean to say that you are 
going to let her sacrifice herself to that 
lumber-headed old knave, — begging your 
pardon for making so free with your 
future brother-in-law.” 

“I let her!” said Audley, sharply. 
“ You ought to know by experience that 
a block of adamant is less immovable 
than Julia Malvern when she once sets 
her head to do a thing. She has made 
up her mind to recover the wealth and 
influence she has lost, and she is one of 
those women who will unhesitatingly 
sacrifice everything — even affection — to 
her ambition. You know' what Julia 
Malvern was born to, and how she prized 
the pow'er and influence that money gave 
her ; you know her pride, her love of 
pomp and splendor ; you know what her 
home was, and the luxurious and extrava- 
gant tastes with w'hich she was reared ; 
but you do not know the bitter poverty 
and humiliation to which she has of late 
years been condemned, nor how her proud 
spirit revolts against it. Bagpipe, it is 
true, is an infernal old blockhead, but he 
can restore to Julia the powder, the rank, 
the fortune she has lost.” 

“ Rank,” said George, scornfully, “ why, 
he has only recently set up a great-grand- 
father ; fortune : I am rich enough to buy 
him out a dozen times over. Look here, 
Audley,” he continued, rising and facing 


his friend, “ I never was much of a fellow 
to sw^ell and gas about my expectations, 
and so I never passed for a crack puppy 
away from home; but do you know,” he 
said, mockingly, “ that since old George 
Bruen has settled matters I am the great- 
est catch in Georgia, — the acknowledged 
heir to a cool million ? Julia has made a 
bad speculation, after all,” he added, with 
bitter irony. “I have money enough, 
you see, to buy out old Bagpipe body 
and soul ; but a woman’s heart is cheap 
at any price ; too cheap, when it can be 
bought for money, to be worth the hav- 
ing. I once cherished a faint hope that 
Julia and I might one day be reconciled ; 
but now she is lost to me, forever, — more 
lost than if she w^ere dead.” And he rose 
from his seat, and leaned his head on the 
mantel-piece, while his w'hole frame shook 
with emotion. 

Audley colored slightly, but the undis- 
guised anguish of his friend disarmed 
resentment. 

“ You are right, George,” he said, a 
little haughtily; “your wealth now but 
increases the barrier your mutual poverty 
placed between you at the time Julia 
broke with you. The present state of 
affairs renders all chance of a reconcili- 
ation impossible : the pride and self- 
respect of both parties alike forbid it ; 
and yet,” he added, touched by the un- 
controllable emotion of his friend, “ if it 
will give you any comfort to know it, I 
believe Julia has always loved you, and 
always will.” 

“ No,” said George, sternly, raising his 
head and looking his friend in the face. 
“ It gives me no comfort to hear anything 
that lowers Julia Malvern in my eyes. 
If she had loved me as I loved her, as I 
once, like a fool, believed that she loved 
me, no earthly power could have raised a 
barrier strong enough to part us two. 
As for her poverty, I only loved her 
the better when I saw her stricken under 
the hand of fortune. I had no rank nor 
influence to offer then ; I was only a 
simple lieutenant, with such chances of 
promotion as Fortune might give, but I 
never stopped to think of that : what I 
had, my heart, my hand, my life, it was 
all Julia’s. I had come under her spell, 
and, fgol that I was, I believed that she 
loved me purely, unselfishly, heroically, 
as such a woman can and ought to love. 
AYhen I heard of the calamities that had 
overwhelmed your family I never stopped 
to think of prudential considerations, but 
hastened at once to her side, and urged 
her to consummate our engagement on 


58 


A FAMILY SECRET, 


the spot. I had nothino; but my love, 
my life's devotion, to offer, — for I never 
stooped to speak to her of expectations, — 
but these, by God’s help, should have 
shielded and blessed her life as no man’s 
gold can ever do. I felt it in me then to 
be a new man *, I loathed my old habits 
of dissipation, and with such a motive to 
guide me as her happiness, such a treas- 
ure to reward me as her love, I felt my 
heart ready for great things ; Julia could 
have made of me what she would. But 
what did she do? Met my passionate 
devotion with cold considerations of 
worldly prudence ; talked about our mu- 
tual poverty, and said we had better wait 
till I could make a start in the world,— 
and a lot of stuff like that. Was it any 
wonder 1 left her in a rage? Was it 
any wonder that, aimless and purpose- 
less, my only hope in life destroyed, I 
should have become the worthless vaga- 
bond I am ? And now, to hear that she 
is about to sell herself for gold to an 
infamous old profligate whom I wouldn’t 
have thought fit to brush the very dust 
from her feet! Perhaps she would have 
done the same to me had she known that 
I would one day be George Bruen’s heir; 
but a love that can be bought and sold, 
— I can get that anywhere.” 

It was well he paused, for there was 
that in Malvern’s face which told him he 
was going too far. 

“ Don’t mind me, Audley,” he said, ob- 
serving his friend’s clouded brow. “ You 
know a fellow in my fix is always a fool, 
and hardly accountable for his words.” 
Then, after another pause, he asked, ab- 
ruptly, “Who is it says, ‘The love of 
money is the root of all evil’ ?” 

“ I forget,” said Audley, reflectively, 
“ whether it was Plato or Aristotle ; I’ve 
not paid much attention to the classics 
since I quit school. But I tell you what, 
George,” he continued, feeling that their 
conversation had touched upon a delicate 
subject, and seizing the opportunity to 
change it, “ the want of money is at the 
root of a deuced sight more evils than the 
love of it. You don’t know what a lucky 
dog you are, to be so well provided with 
the one thing needful ; it’s no fun, I can 
tell you, to be utterly smashed.” 

“ Well, I’ll put you in a fair way to re- 
pair your own ruined fortunes, if you share 
your sister’s views on the subject, and get 
the prettiest wife in the country besides,” 
said George, with forced levity. “ There’s 
Claude Ilarfleur, heiress in her own right 
to half old Kandolph Bruen’s fortune, 
which he had the wit to settle by will on 


his grandchildren, — a solid two hundred 
thousand. By J ove, Audley, you wouldn’ t 
make a bad thing of it now, I can tell you ; 
you always were the very devil of a fellow 
with women, and I’ll bet on your winning 
if you've a mind to pitch in. But here 
comes Uncle Aby at last with the soul-re- 
freshing draught. The dickens, old man, 
what made you hurry yourself so? You 
haven’t kept us waiting but six hours and 
a half, upon my word. Here, put that 
table between these two chairs, with a 
couple of glasses and some cigars, and 
throw on another stick of light-wood, and 
put that writing-desk out of the way, and 
don’t forget to send Mercer to me when 
you go. There, that’ll do ; now you may 
take a pull at that bottle on the mantel- 
piece if you like, and drink to your better 
speed next time.” 

Old Aby took one long, lusty pull at 
the bottle, then stood smacking his lips, 
as he held it up in the lamp-light to see 
how much remained within. 

‘ AVell, what are you waiting for?” said 
George, pretending not to read his desire 
for a deeper potation. 

“ Please, sir, Massa George,” replied the 
old man, with a bow, an elaborate cere- 
mony with him, which he always per- 
formed by catching the topmost lock of 
his wool with his right hand and kicking 
his left foot out behind as he dipped his 
head forward, — “I ain’t drink to ole 
massa yet.” 

“Well, give him a good tug, and then 
be ofiT with you.” 

Uncle Aby took another pull, but still 
held the bottle as though loath to part 
with It. 

“ Please, sir, Massa George,” he began 
at length, with his usual dab of the head 
forward and kick of the foot backward. 
“ it goes agin my ’ligion for stop afore I 
drink the health o’ our great soldiers in 
Virginny, General Lee, and Jefi* Davis, 
and Massa Lincoln.” 

“ You impudent old scoundrel,” cried 
George, with a laugh, — “ to talk treason 
under my very nose! Off with you, and 
drain the bottle to the Pope, the Turk, 
and the Devil, if you choose.” 

“ What a fellow you are, George,” Aud- 
ley exclaimed, as the door closed upon 
Uncle Aby’s heel as it flew back in per- 
formance of the gyration which he never 
omitted, no matter how hasty his exit. 
“Ts this the way you cotton-kings man- 
age your slaves, encouraging them in 
habits of intemperance?” 

“ Encourage them !” exclaimed George. 
“ The deuce a bit of encouragement do 


A BEND SINISTER AND A HALTER. 


59 


they need in that direction, I can tell you. 
However, I have no intention of corrupt- 
in, 2: that youth’s morals,” he continued, 
with a laugh, ‘‘for I take care never to 
leave enough in the bottle to hurt him. 
It is only a little black-mail I pay him 
and Mercer now and then, to secure my 
fine wines and French brandy from pil- 
lage. By the way,” he added, “do you 
still keep that boy Archie about you that 
you had when we were in Italy?” 

“ Yes ; he was born in my father’s 
house, and we were brought up together 
as knight and squire from our earliest 
childhood. He is the only piece of prop- 
erty I possess now ; it is through him 
that I am entitled to rank as a slave-holder, 
and I am rather proud of him as the rep- 
resentative of my fortune. The truth is, 
George,” he continued, in a more serious 
tone, “ though he is a great rogue, and a 
fancy valet is rather an expensive append- 
age for a man in my circumstances, I can’t 
help feeling a sort of attachment for that 
black rascal. He has been faithful to me 
tlii-ough everything ; he followed me to 
prison, and what is more, he followed me 
back again ; and though he does plunder 
me considerably on his own hook, he 
makes up for it in protecting me from 
the depredations of other gentlemen of his 
class. What a superb bouquet !” he added, 
scenting the fragrant libation that George 
was just then in the act of pouring out. 

“ Yes, you will find nothing like this 
in all the country ; my uncle imported it 
years ago, through a special agent in 
Bordeaux, who was a noted connoisseur 
in wines. What ! you decline in the 
face of that aroma? You’re a worse 
case than I thought you •, well, here are 
some fine Havanas. And now, old fellow,” 
he continued, as the two settled them- 
selves for a comfortable smoke, “ let’s 
hear something about yourself, how the 
world has gone with you since we parted, 
and what brought you into this remote 
corner of it,” 

“An order from the War Department 
brought me here,” said Audley, dryly, 
“ to fight deserters in the wire-grass 
country below.” 

“Fight deserters!” exclaimed George. 
“What the deuce did they put you on 
that sort of duty for?” 

“ Because I am at present incapacitated 
by my parole for any other. You know 
I was captured in that confounded guer- 
rilla business that I came so near getting 
hanged for : and though our friends in 
blue were finally prevailed upon to spare 
my precious life, they still persist in 


regarding my expedition as beyond the 
pale of legitimate warfare, and so refuse 
to exchange me. I am now only released 
on parole not to take arms against the 
United States flag until duly exchanged, 
or otherwise relieved from the obligation. 
I declined for a long time to bind myself 
by such conditions, and only did so at 
last in the hope that by repairing in 
person to headquarters I might stir up 
negotiations for my exchange. They 
told me, however, at Richmond, that the 
job was rather a hopeless one just now, 
and I am afraid the game of war will be 
over before I have a chance to try my 
hand again.” 

“But, Audley,” said George, “take 
care you don’t get into fresh scrapes ; is 
this duty perfectly consistent with your 
parole d honneurP^ 

“I hope you don’t think I would 
undertake it if it Avere not,” said Audley, 
quickly. “My parole says distinctly, 
‘ shall not bear arms or perform any 
military service against the United States,’ 
and I am not going to bear arms against 
the United States, but against a lot of 
scoundrels that the Federal authorities 
would be as ready to suppress as our own, 
if they could only get at them. So far as 
I can learn, these gangs of outlaws are 
composed of fugitives from conscription, 
with a few deserters from Yankee out- 
posts, who pillage the country under the 
name of loyalists Vhen they are in our 
lines, and under the name of rebels when 
they are on the other side; they are a 
sort of Ishmaelites, whose hands are 
against every man, and every man’s hand 
against them. J don’t like the service a 
bit ; it’s a nasty, little, picayune business, 
but I am told that what it lacks in glory 
it makes up in danger, so I could not 
honorably decline, though there is neither 
fame nor promotion to be won. Con- 
found it all !” he continued, rising and 
flinging the stump of his cigar into the 
fire, “ but for this cursed parole I might 
be a major-general in six months.” 

“Weil,” said George, laughing, “your 
foes are not so contemptible after all ; 
they have thus far, I believe, got the 
l)etter of all the regular forces sent against 
them; and such rifle-shots! By Jove! 
one of these bushwhackers can hit a mos- 
quito on the wing at a thousand paces ; 
and they are as thick in the swamps, 
themselves, as mosquitoes. Their very 
women fight like tigers, and can cuss you 
out of countenance in ten minutes. How- 
ever,” he continued, “we won’t anticipate 
your discomfiture by so far ; you’ve got 


60 


A FAMILY SECRET, 


a -wounded arm there that’ll keep you 
unfit for duty for a month to come, or 
two of them, if you like ; and in the 
mean time I shall claim you as my guest, 
and we will have a jolly good time of it 
together.” 

‘‘Thank you,” said Audley; “I shall 
certainly avail myself of your hospitality, 
as long as my arm can be kept bad enough 
to satisfy my conscience.” 

“If that won’t answer,” said George, 
“ we can contrive to break the other for 
you. By the way,” he added, “ how did 
you come by that wound? You say 
you haven’t been in service for eighteen 
months.” 

Audley -was glad that the conversation 
had shifted to a point where he might 
allude to his acquaintance with Ruth. 
He felt a delicacy about introducing the 
subject himself, since George, in all his 
communications about their family affairs, 
had made no allusion whatever to Claude’s 
elder sister, nor given any intimation that 
he was even aware of her existence. 

“ I would gladly risk my other arm,” 
said Audley, looking down at his bandages, 
“ in the same cause in which this was in- 
jured, as I broke it in saving Miss Ilar- 
fieur’s life.” 

“Saving Claude’s life? Why, Audley,” 
roared George, “ you must be tight as 
bricks! — you haven’t known her half an 
hour.” 

“ I don’t mean Cladde,” said Audley, 
quietly, “ but her sister, Ruth.” 

“Ruth!” cried George, with a start. 
“ What the deuce do you know about 
her?” 

“ I know that she is a very beautiful 
and charming young lady,” said Audley, 
appearing not to notice his friend’s ex- 
cited manner. 

‘‘ Do you really mean to say that you 
have met Ruth ” 

“ Ilarfleur,” said Audley, remarking his 
hesitation, and completing the name. “ I 
do, and she is the cause of my being here 
to-night.” 

“ She is not in this house?” 

“Yes.” 

“Thunder! How the devil did it hap- 
pen, Audley?” cried George, excitedly, 
to whom his uncle had as yet found no 
opportunity of communicating the intel- 
ligence. 

Malvern laid aside the cigar he had 
just lighted, and gave a detailed history 
of his first meeting with Miss Ilarfleur, 
and of their subsequent acquaintance. 


George listened very attentively until his 
friend had finished ; then throwing his 
half-consumed cigar into the fire, and 
gazing absently after it, he said, — 

“ And so you really have brought that 
poor girl here ; did you know, Audley, 
what you were doing?” 

“ I knew that I was giving assistance 
and protection to a woman who seemed 
in need of both,” said Audley, quietly. 

“Does my uncle know she is here?” 
asked George. 

“ Mr. Bruen met us at the gate.” 

“How did he receive her?” 

“ Very kindly.” 

“That’s like him; he’s a regular old 
trump,” cried George, with a brightening 
face. “ And you say she is hand- 
some?” 

“ Remarkably so, — and such a voice ! 
Patti is a screech-owl to her. There is 
not the same fault to be found with her 
beauty, either, that you find with the 
other sister’s ; for, though it does not 
strike you so forcibly at first, it grows 
upon you continually. There is nothing 
commonplace about her : her looks are 
as much of a riddle to me as her history. 
You can’t, to save your life, make out 
what her beauty chiefly consists in ; and 
yet her face grows and grows upon you, 
and haunts your dreams, till I’ll be hanged 
if it wouldn’t play the very devil Avith a 
fellow, if he looked at it long enough.” 

“ Take care it don’t play the devil with 
you, then, my boy,” said George, in a 
half-serious tone, as he observed the un- 
wonted enthusiasm with which his friend 
spoke. ‘‘ You know you always said, Aud- 
ley, that if you ever did fall honestly in 
love, you were afraid it would be a bad case 
Avith you. I warn you now, in time, for 
her sake, as well as for your OAAm, not to 
contemplate Ruth Harfleur’s beauty with 
too partial eyes, for there is a bend sinis- 
ter and a halter on her escutcheon ; and 
I knoAV the Malverns well enough to feel 
assured there is not one of you but Avould 
trample under foot your OAvn heart, and 
the heart of the Avoman Avho loved you, 
rather than stain ” 

He ceased abruptly as the door opened 
and his uncle entered the room. It was 
an unusual hour for the old gentleman to 
be astir, and Audley, judging from his 
countenance that he had something of 
special importance to communicate to his 
nephew, considerately withdrew to his 
OAvn apartment, and left the two alone 
together. 


QUASIMODO. 


61 


CHAPTER XIII. 

QUASIMODO. 

Audley slept that night as only a man 
can sleep who has long been deprived of 
the luxury of a bed, and it was with the 
blind instinct of one suddenly roused 
from heavy slumber that he sprang to 
his feet next morning, on hearing the 
sound of a bugle close at hand, and 
began to feel for his sword. The action 
restored him to full consciousness, and 
he remembered with a smile that this 
rural reveillS was calling to their labors 
not the warlike veterans of a border 
battle-field, but the peaceful toilers of a 
Georgia plantation. Audley laid himself 
down again, wdth that delicious, drowsy 
sensation which makes it almost a luxury 
to be unnecessarily awakened, now and 
then, just to feel how pleasant it is to go 
to sleep again. He composed himself for 
a comfortable morning nap, but, unfor- 
tunately, the little world about him did 
not compose itself at the same time. 
The reveilU^ or “morning horn,” as the 
negroes more poetically term it, was the 
signal for the whole plantation to rouse 
itself, amid a confusion of noises more 
distracting to Audley’s unaccustomed ear 
than the roar of a military camp. 

The sounding of the bugle was first 
succeeded by a confused hum of voices, 
mingled with occasional snatches of song, 
and loud ya-yas, called forth by ebulli- 
tions of African wit, as the negroes 
issued from their cabins and went about 
their various tasks. Then came a tramp- 
ing of heavy, broganed feet around the 
house, with flashes of torchlight gleam- 
ing through crevices in the wall, fol- 
lowed by the sound of the busy axe, and 
the noisy rattle of the windlass as the 
old pine bucket made oft-repeated jour- 
ne3^s to the bottom of the w’-ell. A hor- 
rible din from the poultry-yard was 
mingled with the distant roar of the 
stables, while above all arose the herds- 
man’s musical call, and the merry song 
of laborers starting for the cotton-field. 

Scarcely had these noises begun to 
subside, and the early twilight had not 
yet brightened into the misty gray of 
morning, when Audley was alarmed by 
the voice of his host calling so loud and 
excitedly that he started up in bed, won- 
dering whether the house were on fire, 
or a body of Yankee raiders had sud- 
denly made their appearance. The old 
gentleman was an early riser, and had a 
habit of taking his station every morn- 


ing on a little back porch behind the 
dining-room, and issuing thence his or- 
ders to the remotest corner of the planta- 
tion, Avhile bracing himself with a stout 
mint-julep. Every darkey that came in 
sight was hailed and questioned as to 
where he was going, what he was going 
to do, who told him to do it, scolded for 
doing it, then scolded for not doing it, 
and finall}" ordered to do something else. 
This was what Mr. Bruen called attend- 
ing to his business. As there w’ere great 
numbers passing about at that busy hour, 
and as the old gentleman never allowed 
a single individual, no matter how far 
off, to escape unchallenged, he had got 
into the habit of talking very fast, so as 
to have done with one before another 
could escape him ; and as he generally 
modulated his voice as if aiming to be 
heard at the North Pole or on the top 
of the Himalayas, it is not surprising that 
Audley Malvern was somewhat startled 
by his first utterances. 

The first person that attracted Mr. 
Bruen’ s attention on this particular 
morning was one of the stable-grooms, 
whose woolly head w’as barely visible in 
the distance above the snowy expanse 
that formed the remote boundary of a 
neighboring cotton-field. 

“ You Jeems, Jeems, Jeems, you scoun- 
drel !” he cried, in a voice that seemed 
pitched for the antipodes, and adopting 
from habit something of the grammar 
and phraseology of those to whom he ad- 
dressed himself, “ take that bay mare to 
Uncle January’s and get her shod before 
you ride her to South Ambury for the 
mail, and keep your Mass’ George’s horse 
up to-day, and hitch William Tell to the 
buggy, and tell Long Dick to use old 
Bee, and Sal, and Sliding Sam, and the 
blind mule in the gin, and to put them 
two pair I bought from Joe Thompson 
t’other dajr in the sugar-mill, and turn 
the rest into the new ground by the 
river. Good -morning, Aunt Yiney,” 
lowering his voice as the shuffling steps 
of an old woman were heard approach- 
ing ; “ how goes it with you this morn- 
ing?” 

“ Ah, lud, I ain’t much, massa. And 
how’s you do?” 

Audley sank back upon his pillow, 
with a muttered “ Confound it ! will they 
never let a fellow sleep here?” And I am 
afraid he mentally consigned his host to 
a place not often mentioned in polite 
society. 

A short pause succeeded, during which 
the old gentleman seemed to be giving 


C2 


A FAjYILF secret. 


his uTidlvided attention to the julep, then 
the storm broke out afresh. 

“ Wally, Wally ! Ho there, you d — d 
scoundrel!” he shouted, in a voice that 
midit have reached New Zealand or 
Cape Colony. 

“ Lord ’a mercy on me, how come you 
to let them hogs break in the potato- 
patch, you rascal ? Them’s your missis’s 
best yams, too, in that patch by the horse 
lot ; and I’d rather see you dead and in 
h — 1 — may the Lord forgive me !” in a 
lower tone ; “I mean if you was a good 
Christian, and prepared for it — than to 
lose them potatoes.” 

A far-off voice from the antipodes was 
heard to shout back something in reply, 
but it was immediately drowned in a 
roar that might have been intended for 
some one in Kamtchatka or the Philip- 
pine Islands. 

Halloo there ! hold on, you ; stop, 
stop, you rascal ! Where are you going, 
John?” 

The reply returned from Kamtchatka 
was too feeble for Audley to catch. 

“Why don’t you get along with you, 
then ?” broke in the master. “ Get along 
faster, you lazy dog, or I’ll help you with 
my stick ; and tell old Setley to turn the 
milk cows into the pea-field, and to kill 
‘One of the crop-earea sow’s pigs for din- 
ner. How now, Tradwick?” with a 
slight change of tone, to reach some 
one no farther off than Western Europe 
or the Azores. “ Good-morning, Trad- 
wick ; where are the hands working to- 
day ?” ^ ^ . 

•‘Homin’, sir, mornin’,” replied the 
officious voice of the overseer. “ I reckon 
they’ll finish in the Grinder lot by noon, 
and then I thought I would turn ’em in 
the mill field, t’other side o’ Gap Pond.” 

“ Cotton pretty good over there ?” 

“Wall, no; it’s raither sorry. The 
mill field’s mos’ too close on the bottom 
lands to make good cotton of a wet sea- 
son like this. I’ve a good mind to put 
it in corn next year.’’ 

“How about the river field? Have 
you finished over there?” 

“ Yes, licked it clean as ef the catter- 
pillar had been along.” 

“ And how did it yield?” 

“Wall, right smart; nigh on to fifty 
bales, I should say.” 

This dialogue continued for some half- 
hour or more, broken with an occasional 
digression to Nova Zembla or the Sand- 
wich Isles, after which the old gentle- 
man, having finished his julep, subsided 
for a time, and Audley again composed 


himself for slumber. He was just be- 
ginning to lose consciousness, when a 
little darkey came in with a light-wood 
torch, which he stuck into the fire-place, 
followed by another little darkey with an 
armful of light-wood knots, which he 
flung down on a corner of the great 
clay hearth ; and then they both sat 
down to play in the ashes, till a big 
darkey entered with a pail of water, 
drove both the little darkeys out, stuck 
a fresh pine-knot in the tire, then sat 
down and went to sleep over it. Before 
long, another darkey came in with bath- 
tub and towels, threw on another pine- 
knot, chunked up his fellow, and the two 
sat themselves down for a sociable chat. 
But the friendly conference was suddenly 
interrupted by Malvern, who, exasper- 
ated at last beyond all endurance, pitched 
a bootjack and two chairs at the disturb- 
ers of his peace, and sent the astonished 
darkeys flying from the room. He was 
now too thoroughly aroused to think of 
sleeping any more; and as Mr. Bruen's 
voice was heard again, just at that mo- 
ment, issuing orders to some point in 
Madagascar or the Fejee Islands, Audley 
concluded to get up and dress in self- 
defense, though it was long before the 
breakfast hour at Sandowne. 

Having finished his toilet, he sallied 
forth to amuse himself as best he might, 
till breakfast-time. On passing through 
the hall, he was surprised to hear the 
sound of a piano issuing from the draw- 
ing-room. His first thought was of Buth, 
—but it could not be she, for the per- 
formance was bungling and crude. The 
door was ajar ; he entered softly, but 
stopped short, surprised and shocked, as 
his eyes fell upon the unhappy musician. 

was a lad of small, delicate frame, 
and most horribly deformed. The right 
hip and the left shoulder protruded far 
beyond their natural places, and the 
spine curved from side to side, as though 
some cruel contortion of nature had 
twisted it into the shape of the letter S. 
A fine, well-formed head surmounted this 
distorted trunk, like some stately castle 
on the brow of a ragged precipice, but 
as the boy sat with his back to the door, 
Audley could not judge of the features. 
A pair of crutches lay on a chair beside 
him, and a large Newfoundland dog, that 
crouched at his feet, opened his eyes as 
Audley entered, welcomed him with a 
cordial wag of the tail, then dropped 
quietly to sleep again. 

Audley knew at once that this unfor- 
tunate creature must be young Bruen 


QUASIMODO. 


63 


Ilarfleur, and, in spite of all he had 
heard (^oncernin^; the boy’s savage tem- 
per. his heart found room for no feeling 
save the most unbounded compassion. 
He stood near the open door, unper- 
ceived by the lad, and watched him in 
silence until he finished his strain. It 
was a wild chorus from “ Der Freischiitz,” 
which he was trying to play by ear. 
Now and then he would make a false 
note, and if the first or second effort did 
not set him right, would strike the key- 
board angrily with his fists. At last he 
came to a passage of such intricacy that 
he could not manage it at all, so he gave 
the piano two or three hearty cuffs, and, 
dropping his hands on his knees, sat 
gazing at the instrument with a hopeless, 
dejected air. Audley, moved with com- 
passion, which he yearned to express, 
took this opportunity of introducing him- 
self to the unfortunate cripple’s notice. 

“Good-morning, my young friend,” he 
said, in a pleasant voice, drawing near 
the piano. “ You seem to have got into 
some confusion about your notes ; will 
you allow me to set you right ? I happen 
to be very familiar with that air.” 

The boy turned his head suddenly, and 
revealed a face that Audley never forgot. 
It was exquisitely beautiful in feature 
and outline, and bore a striking resem- 
blance to Ruth’s, in the delicate chiseling 
and classic regularity of contour; but 
the coloring was more like Claude’s, and 
the expression was unlike anything 
Audley had ever before seen. 

“I’m none of your friend,” he an- 
swered, sullenly, as he turned his flashing 
eyes upon the stranger with a look of 
angry surprise, “ and it’s no business of 
yours whether I play right or wrong.” 

This was unpromising, but Audley’ s 
feelings had been deeply stirred by the 
boy’s miserable story, and he was not to 
be easily baffled in his efforts at concili- 
ation. He saw that the readiest way to 
Bruen’s heart was through music, and 
returned perseveringly to the point from 
which he had been so rudely repulsed. 
He received the ungracious rebuff with a 
smile, and answered, good-humoredly, — 

“ But it’s your business, you know, to 
play correctly if you can. You seem to 
have a fine talent for music, and would 
play very well indeed with a little pains ; 
see now, here is the chord you are try- 
ing to make , — c sharp, now then e flat. 
There, that’ll help set you straight.” 

The boy cut short his instructions by 
rudely knocking his hand from the key- 
board. “What right have you to talk 


about setting me straight?” he cried, his 
pale cheeks suddenly growing crimson 
and his eyes flashing fire. “ I tell you to 
go about your business and let me alone !” 
And he shook his fist in Audley’ s face so 
fiercely, as almost to betray that gallant 
oflicer into an ignominious dodge. 

“ Upon my word, young Quasimodo, 
your manners need mending,” he said, 
as he caught the boy’s clinched fist gently 
but firmly in his hand, and removed it 
from its unbecoming proximity to his own 
features. Resentment against so pitiable 
an object was impossible, and Audley had 
uttered the words in an under-tone, as a 
sort of private reflection of his own, rather 
than an intended rebuke to the boy. It 
never entered his head that this young 
savage of the piney woods had so much as 
heard of Victor Hugo, and had he dreamed 
that this allusion to the unprepossessing 
hero of Notre Dame would be understood, 
he would have bitten out his tongue 
rather than make it. As it was, the name 
Quasimodo had no sooner fallen from his 
lips than he would have given his right 
hand to recall it. Bruen did understand, 
and his face became livid with rage. He 
stood for a moment glaring at Audley 
like a young hyena, then suddenly fell 
upon him, tooth and nail, and, before the 
flatter well knew what he was about, had 
bitten his arm till the blood rushed out. 
At that moment a delicate white hand 
was laid on Bruen’s shoulder, and, look- 
ing round, the boy’s eyes met the eyes of 
the sister he had never before beheld. 

Ruth had left her bed at the first sound 
of the dressing-bell, and, as she was one 
of those rare women who possess the art 
of dressing rapidly, she had completed 
her toilet long before any of the rest of 
the family were ready to leave their rooms. 
She had started out for a walk in the 
garden, before breakfast, but, hearing 
music in the parlor, and being informed 
by one of the servants that her brother 
was in the habit of going there every 
morning to play on the piano, she directed 
her steps thither instead of to the garden, 
and arrived just in time to witness the 
extraordinary scene described above. The 
accident that had crippled Bruen so pain- 
fully happened a year or two after her 
departure from home : she had never been 
informed of her brother’s condition, and 
the knowledge of it now burst upon her as 
a horrible surprise that almost took her 
senses away. She had no idea, until that 
moment, but that the brother whom she 
remembered only as a little chubby in- 
fant had grown up into a fine, well- 


64 


A FAMILY SECRET, 


favored lad ; and when her eyes first 
fell upon the poor, misshapen creature, 
whose natural deformity was rendered 
more horrible than ever at the moment by 
the fearful passion that distorted his fea- 
tures, it was as though a thunder-bolt had 
descended upon her head. She tried to 
speak, but the one word “Bruen’’ was 
all she could utter; her tongue clave to 
the roof of her mouth, and she stood gaz- 
ing at her brother with a look of horror 
and anguish that she tried in vain to 
conceal. He instantly loosened his hold 
of Malvern’s arm, shook her hand rudely 
from his shoulder, and turned upon her 
with the look of a young tiger. 

“ What business have you got touching 
me? you red-headed witch!” he cried, 
fiercely. “ What do you want to point 
at my shoulders for?” 

Audley felt like bundling the young 
whelp out of the window for this rudeness 
to his sister, but he remembered his own 
share in raising the storm, and self-re- 
proach made him forbearing. 

“ Don’t notice anything that may escape 
from that poor boy now. Miss Harfleur,” 
he whispered. “ His feelings have just 
been cruelly wounded through my own 
indiscretion, and he is scarcely responsible 
for anything he may say or do.” 

In a few half-whispered words he re- 
lated what had occurred between Bruen 
and himself. Ruth’s literary attainments 
vrere not very extensive, and she was as 
much in the dark as to the subject of 
Audley’ s unfortunate allusion as he had 
supposed Bruen would be ; but her 
woman’s instinct told her it was some- 
thing that the boy had construed into a 
cruel jeer at his personal defects, and, 
feeling the injustice of such a suspicion 
against Malvern, she immediately set 
herself to soothe the boy’s feelings, and 
make peace with him for the young offi- 
cer, who reproached himself bitterly for 
his thoughtless words. Forgetting the 
rude repulse she had received, Ruth ap- 
proached her brother once more, and laid 
her hand gently on his arm, which he 
held doggedly crossed upon the other on 
his breast. 

Bruen, my brother,” she said, softly, 
while the boy started at her words, and 
fixed his eyes upon her in a keen, search- 
ing gaze, “ this gentleman is Colonel 
Malvern, and you must not be angry at 
anything he has said, for I am sure he 
did not mean to hurt your feelings. Tie 
has been very kind to me, and that 
wounded arm of his was hurt in saving 
my life, — your sister’s life, Bruen. I am 


your sister Ruth, who went away so long 
ago, when you were a little baby.' Have 
you never heard of me, brother?” she 
continued, with a faltering voice, her 
heart sinking under the cold, sullen look 
with which he regarded her. “ Do you 
know nothing, — do you care nothing 
about your sister Ruth?” 

He kept his eyes fixed upon her a long 
time without making any reply, then 
said, abruptly, — 

“ You are beautiful, like all the rest ; I 
thought you were like me, because they 
sent you off* and hid you. But all who 
bear our name are beautiful, — all but 
poor Quasimodo.” 

The words were uttered in a tone that 
smote Audley to the heart, while Ruth 
felt herself drawn towards tliis poor, mis- 
shapen creature as she had never been 
drawn towards any living being. She 
said nothing, but stooped and kissed him 
tenderly. 

“Go away; I hate you,” was Bruen’s 
only answer to the caress, and he raised 
his clinched fist, but let it fall again 
without striking her. Ruth, overcome 
by this rebuff, covered her face with her 
hands, and, sinking into a chair, burst 
into tears. Malvern, feeling that it 
would be indelicate to remain an idle 
spectator of this extraordinary scene be- 
tween the brother and sister, silently 
withdrew. Bruen turned upon his sister 
a look of sullen surprise. 

“ What are you crying for?” he asked, 
sharply. “ You are not crooked nor devil- 
ish, and nobody’s ashamed of you ; what 
are you crying for?” 

“ Because I am a miserable outcast,” 
cried Ruth, passionately, “whom even 
my own brother rejects.” 

“You an outcast!” he exclaimed. 
“ How can you talk that way, who are 
straight as an arrow and beautiful as 
daylight? It’s I that am the outcast, — I 
that nobody loves.” 

“I will love you, if you will let me,” 
said Ruth, drying her eyes. 

“ There’s nothing about me for any- 
body to love,” said the boy, gloomily. 

“ You only want to pity me, and I don’t 
want your pity.” 

“ But I want yours, if I cannot win 
your affection.” 

“You want my pity? You are not 
lame, nor hunchback, nor devilish ; what 
do you want to be pitied for?” 

“ Because I am lonely and desolate, 
and nobody cares for me.” 

“ That big dragooning fellow cares for 
you ; I saw it by the way he looked at 


MR. BRUEN CARRIES HIS POINT. 


65 


you,” said the boy ; and he shook his fist 
menacingly towards the door through 
which Audley Malvern had disappeared. 

A sudden flush overspread Ruth’s feat- 
ures. ‘‘You don’t know what you are 
saying, Bruen,” she answered; and, to 
hide her confusion, she turned to the 
piano, and ran her fingers over the keys, 
then commenced playing a melancholy 
air from “Faust.” The boy’s fiice grad- 
ually softened as he listened, to the music. 
By degrees he drew nearer, and, resting 
his elbows on the piano, stood listening 
with an expression of rapt enjoyment, 
till a sound of footsteps in the hall 
roused him from his trance, and brought 
the old dogged look into his face again. 

“ That’s always the way,” he said, cast- 
ing an angry glance at the door ; “ some- 
body coming to stare, — but stop ; they 
sha’n’t hear you play, — come, Toby.” 

He jerked her hand from the key- 
board, and, seizing his crutches, vanished 
through one of the open windows, fol- 
lowed by his dog. Ruth rose and went 
after him, the windows opening to the 
floor ; but the boy moved with such 
amazing rapidity, that he disappeared 
amid the shrubbery before Ruth had 
crossed the piazza. 


CHAPTER XIV. 

MR. BRUEN CARRIES HIS POINT. 

The rest of the family had assembled 
in Mrs. Bruen’s sitting-room by this 
time, whiling away, as best they might, 
that most irritating and uncomfortable 
portion of daily life, the few minutes that 
intervene between getting dressed and 
getting breakfast. To this apartment 
Ruth was conducted by her uncle, and 
introduced to his friends. The occasion 
was a painfully embarrassing one to 
Ruth, for she saw a look of furtive curi- 
osity in every eye; and, though her uncle 
did his best to make it appear as though 
nothing extraordinary had happened, and 
made forlorn jokes about her being “ a 
little runaway nun,” there was a cloud 
on his brow that he could not dispel, and 
a perturbation in his manner that he 
could not wholly conceal. Unlike her 
younger sister, Ruth had had little ex- 
perience of society, and her secluded con- 
vent life had fostered a reserve of manner 


which was not calculated to make her 
way readily among strangers. In all 
sorts of odd adventures that would em- 
barrass and, perhaps, shock the propriety 
of conventionally-trained women, she was 
unusually confident and self-possessed, 
the strange experiences to which a life 
of religious knight-errantry had inured 
her, together with her subsequent brief 
intercourse with Bohemians of the stage, 
having made familiar to her pha'ses of ex- 
istence from which other women of her 
class would shrink with genteel horror. 
But in regularly-organized society,, to 
which she was less accustomed, she felt 
less at ease, and the singular, and to her 
inexplicable, relation in which she stood 
to her family rendered the situation an 
exceedingly trying one, and froze her natu- 
ral reserve of manner into an iciness that 
seemed almost ungracious. She had not 
mixed enough with men to learn the 
power of beauty, and had not, therefore, 
that unfailing source of sustaining grace 
which consciousness of beauty, next to a 
Paris-made dress, supplies to the feminine 
mind, and did not give her own face full 
credit for its share in attracting the 
wondering glances directed towards her. 

She soon forgot her embarrassment, 
however, and began to stare and wonder 
in her turn, as her eyes fell upon a pic- 
ture over the mantel-piece, that instantly 
riveted her gaze, and rendered her oblivi- 
ous, for the moment, of every other ob- 
ject. It was a full-length portrait of a 
young and very beautiful woman, with a 
profusion of light blonde hair, arranged 
in a style that bore no distant resem- 
blance to the graceful fabric of puff's and 
ringlets that surmounted Ruth’s own 
brow. The dress, like the coiffure, was 
of a style in vogue some quarter of a 
century back, but towards which the 
fashions of the period had reverted in 
such a degree as to give it quite a modern 
appearance. The most perfect grace and 
dignity were pictured in every outline of 
the queenly form, but the beautiful face 
wore an expression of willfulness and 
petulance strangely out of keeping with 
its singular delicacy of coloring and con- 
tour. As her eyes fell upon this portrait 
Ruth felt herself vividly impressed with 
the idea that she had seen the like of it 
before. So strangely familiar was the 
face that she stood staring at it in a kind 
of trance, as though a ghost had risen 
before her. Nor was she alone in her 
bewilderment, for the moment she entered 
the room every eye had turned from Ruth 
to the portrait, and from the portrait back 


66 


A FAMILY SECRET. 


to Ruth. Mr. Bruen observed the move- 
ment, slight as it was, and raised his 
own eyes to the picture with a pained 
and mournful expression. 

“Your mother, my child,” he said, in 
a low, quick voice to Ruth. “ That is 
your mother as she was thirty years ago.” 
There was an unaccountable nervousness 
in his manner, and he rubbed his hands 
together hard as he spoke. 

“ Mother, — my mother !” gasped Ruth ; 
“ I knew I had seen that face before.” 

“ Yes, my child, you see it every time 
you look in the glass,” replied her uncle ; 
and, laying his hands on her shoulders, 
he turned her gently round, so that she 
beheld her own image, reflected side by 
side with the portrait, in an old-fashioned 
mirror that hung on the opposite wall. 
The resemblance was so striking as to 
startle her at first, but soon, forgetting her 
own face, she turned from the mirror, and, 
fixing her eyes again upon the picture, 
exclaimed, in innocent unconsciousness 
of the compliment she was paying her- 
self, “How beautiful! how wonderfully 
beautiful I” 

“Yes,” answered Mr. Bruen, planting 
himself in front of the portrait, and 
warming with enthusiasm as he con- 
templated it, “ that is one of Healy’s 
best. He was fond of painting hand- 
some women, and, by gad, — I beg your 
pardon, ladies, — he never had a better 
subject than Nettie Bruen. This was 
painted in Washington when my brother 
was in the United States Senate. Nettie 
Bruen, of Georgia, and Kate Audley, of 
Baltimore, were the stars of the republi- 
can court in those days, and the like of 
them has never shone there since.” 

“Kate Audley?” exclaimed Malvern, 
who had been an interested observer of 
this little scene. “ That is my mother ; 
she was a Baltimorean.” 

“The dev No, no, Margaret; I 

didn’t mean it. The — the — the — God 
bless my soul !” cried Mr. Bruen, making 
a dash at Malvern, and seizing his hand 
in a grip that fairly made him writhe. 
“Why didn’t you tell me at first that 
you were Kate Audley’s son? You are 
a thousand times welcome here for your 
own sake, and a thousand times more 
for your mother’s. Yes, yes, I remem- 
ber now ; she did marry a Malvern of 
Virginia. I used to love her like blazes 
myself when I was young ; but all that 
is bravely mended now,” he added, step- 
ping behind his wife’s chair and laying 
his hand caressingly on her shoulder, 
“ and I could now shake hands with my 


old rival as cordially as I welcome his 
son.” 

“ I am sorry to tell you,” said Malvern, 
sadly, “ that my father is beyond the 
reach alike of friendship or resentment.” 

“AVhat! Charles Malvern dead? Why, 
I thought that, like myself, he was too 
old to be in the army,” exclaimed Mr. 
Bruen, who, like most civilians in time 
of war, seemed to have a vague notion 
that men needn’t die except in the army. 

Audley related, as briefly as possible, 
the circumstances attending his father’s 
death. He was too proud to reveal the 
almost complete destitution to which his 
family had been reduced by the destruc- 
tion and confiscation of their property, 
but it was evident from the few facts 
he recited that they had suffered great 
reverses. Mr. Bruen was the most vol- 
canic of Southern “ fire-eaters,” and re- 
garded all who entertained sentiments 
different from his own as depraved be- 
yond the pale of human endurance or 
the hope of divine mercy, and any re- 
cital of their exploits, military or polit- 
ical, caused such ebullitions of wrath as 
would have consigned the whole Yankee 
nation to the realms of Tartarus had 
George Bruen been the Rhadamanthus 
of human destinies. He listened atten- 
tively to Malvern’s story, without saying 
a word until the latter had finished ; then, 
bringing the clinched fist of his right 
hand with a loud whack into the open 
palm of the other, exclaimed, — 

“ By ” But checking himself sud- 

denly at the opening monosyllable as he 
remembered that he could not do justice 
to the subject in the presence of ladies, 
he grasped the tongs, and gave such a 
violent poke to the fire that he sent little 
brands flying all over the room, to the 
great consternation of the ladies grouped 
around. Having thus given expression 
to his feelings, he stood for a moment 
with his hands folded behind him, gazing 
absently into the fire ; then, after a 
short silence, he turned to Malvern and 
asked, abruptly, — 

“ Where are your mother and sisters 
now ?” 

“ My eldest sister, Mrs. Ashley, is with 
her husband in Charleston. Julia, the 
younger, and my mother have been living 

for a year past at H , in the suburbs ; 

but as that place is in danger of becoming 
very soon the seat of active military opera- 
tions, they Avill have to seek another ref- 
uge ; they were undecided when I left 
them where they would go.” 

“ Undecided !” cried Mr. Bruen. “ Bless 


MR, BRUEN CARRIES HIS POINT, 


67 


my soul, what right have they to be unde- 
cided while I have got a roof to shelter 
them? Why didn’t you bring ’em straight 
here with you ? I take it hard now that a 
man’ s old friends should slight his house in 
that way when they have been turned out 

of their own by a set of d — d, infern I 

didn’t go to say it, Margaret, butyou know 

they are a confounded, infern I beg 

your pardon, ladies; — but it ain’t too late 
yet,” he continued in his odd way of jumb- 
ling things together. “ Run, Claude, my 
dear, fetch pen and paper for Colonel Mal- 
vern, and we’ll hurry and get the letter off 
to South Ambury before the mail closes. 
Here you, Tom, Dick, Caesar ; ho, there, 
you rascal !” flinging open a window and 
bawling with all his might; “tell black 
John to saddle the gray mare and be 
ready to carry a letter to town right aAvay 
— run, you rascal, run, — a letter to town 
before the mail goes out, and tell him to 
water his horse at the Blue Spring as he 
comes back, and to ride her with the 
snaffle bridle. Quick, you rascal ; what 
are you waiting for? Now, colonel,” 
placing before Malvern the dainty little 
writing-case that Claude had brought, 
and turning over as he did so a bottle 
of violet ink on her delicately-perfumed 
paper. “But, bless my soul!” he ex- 
claimed, as his eye fell upon Malvern’s 
bandages, “it’s your right arm that’s 
wounded, and you can’t write. Well, 
no matter; Claude shall be your amanu- 
ensis.” 

Audley took advantage of this pause in 
his host’s volubility to begin a polite re- 
monstrance ; for, remembering his con- 
versation of the night before with George 
Dalton, he felt that his sister could never 
consent to be a guest under the same roof 
with him. 

“ I am very grateful for your kindness, 
Mr. Bruen,” he began, “ but ” 

“ But !” cried Mr. Bruen. “ This is no 
time for huts ; we’ll have no huts about it. 

I tell you they must come. Claude, my 
dear, write a letter to Colonel Malvern’s 
mother and sister, telling them to come 
and make my house their home till the 
war is over : till doomsday if they like ; 
and, Margaret,” turning to his wife, 

“ don’t you think you had better add a 
line yourself?” 

“ I was just going to ask,” said Mrs. 
Bruen, producing pen and paper from a 
drawer of her work-stand, “ if I might 
write; and I shall tell Mrs. Malvern,” 
she added, with a laugh, “ that if she 
don’t come I will believe it is because she 
is afraid of making me jealous.” 


Audley renewed his protestations : he 
represented the long distance, the hazard- 
ous journey, the impossibility of two 
ladies undertaking it alone, but Mr. 
Bruen set aside all his objections. 

“ Tut, tut, the journey’s nothing,” he 
said; “and there’s my agent, Chaffler 
and Doyle, — Doyle, I mean, coming from 
Charleston on the 15th. I’ll write him to 
fetch them. AVhere is George, I wonder? 
He ought to be here to write this letter 
for me ; the trifling dog is never up to 
breakfast. Margaret, you ought not to 
indulge that boy so; he won’t be worth 
pickin’ up with the tongs if you let him 
go on.” 

Mr. Bruen’ s abuse of George was like 
an Englishman’s abuse of his country, — 
he indulged in it freely himself, but would 
have broken the head of any one who had 
dared to agree with him. 

Thus grumbling and railing at George, 
the old gentleman sat down and penned, 
in awful hieroglyphics, the following 
characteristic lines : 

“ Sandowne, Dec. 5th. 

“Dear Doyle, — 

“ There are some ladies in H , Mrs. 

Malvern and her daughter, who are to 
come here with you. Stop for them on 
your way, and bring them dead or alive. 

“Yours, etc., 

“ G. Bruen.” 

He secretly inclosed a check, with 
sealed instructions for Doyle to defray 
all expenses, and then the letters were 
ready to be posted. 

Audley, unable to write a line himself, 
yet feeling the absolute necessity of warn- 
ing Julia, saw that no course was left him 
except to apply to Claude. She was sit- 
ting apart from the rest of the company, 
finishing her letter. Audley approached, 
and bending over her, said, in a low 
voice, — 

“Miss Harfleur, I am in a difficulty 
and want your assistance.” 

She laid down her pen and looked up 
at him. 

“ You are a woman,” he continued, 
“ and your delicate womanly instincts 
will understand me without many words. 
You asked me last night if George Dalton 
was not the victim of a hopeless passion. 

I evaded your question then, but now I 
answer that he is.” 

A bright smile overspread Claude’s 
features. 

“ He does love another, then,” she said, 
in a tone the reverse of a tragedy queen 
who has discovered herself the dupe of a 


68 


A FAMILY SECRET. 


faithless deceiver. It was plain that these 
two young people were just as far from 
being in love with each other as might be 
expected of a young couple whom all their 
friends were bent upon bringing together. 

“ Yes,” said Audley ; “ and you will 
understand my motive in imparting this 
confidence to you, when I tell you that 
my sister is the object of that passion. 
She has behaved badly towards George ; 
and the relations between them are such 
that she ought not — must not — enter 
this house ; but she does not know that 
George is here,^ nor what position he 
holds in his uncle’s house; and unless 
warned in time, — you understand me. 
Miss Ilarfleur; you feel as one high- 
minded woman should for another, and 
will give the needed warning? Just add 
one line to your letter ; say that this is 
George Dalton’s home, and Julia will not 
come.” 

Claude laid her hand on the pen, and 
hesitated a moment before taking it up ; 
then raising her eyes to Malvern’s face, she 
answered, pleasantly, but decisively, — 

“ I will not do that, but I will invite 
her to my house nstead.” 

Claude had secretly resolved that Julia 
Malvern and George Dalton should meet 
again, and that they should be reconciled. 
She was aware of her uncle’s designs 
with regard to George and herself, and 
she knew that whichever thwarted them 
would be likely to forfeit his favor and 
fortune as well. She had made up her 
mind from the first that she would never 
marry George ; but it occurred to her 
now that if she could make him refuse to 
marry her instead, it would be a much 
better move, — for Claude was as worldly 
as she was beautiful. 

Audley had no time for further remon- 
strance ; for before Claude could finis, h 
her letter breakfast was announced, and 
Mrs. Bruen rose to lead the way into the 
dining-room. 

It was one of those royal breakfasts, 
almost barbaric in its bounteous profu- 
sion, that one finds nowhere else on the 
face of the earth except at an old-fash- 
ioned Georgia country house. Stuffed 
partridges, broiled snipe, fragrant sau- 
sages, venison-steaks, filled the air with 
savory odors. Bare old “Georgia bis- 
cuit,’^ crisp and flaky from “ Maum 
Judy’s” kneading-tray ; hot rolls, fairly 
bursting out of their crusts ; brown toasts, 
swimming in baths of boiled cream and 
eggs ; wafers, thin and dainty enough to 
set before the fairy queen, piled up in 
generous heaps till they toppled like the 


leaning tower of Pisa, and threatened to 
demolish in their fall Miss Cassandra’s 
artistic little butter-balls; omelets, light 
as feathers, and waffles, steaming yet in 
memory of the kitchen tire, all lay spread 
in tempting profusion on the rarest of 
china and damask, making the beholder 
hungry in spite of himself. 

As Mr. Bruen entered the dining-room 
with his guests, Uncle Aby and his staff 
of waiters stood ready to receive them, 
ranged in two straight lines on either side 
of the room, dressed in their livery of 
Avhite cotton aprons, with their shining 
black faces full of eager self-importance. 
If old Aby had been a field-marshal at 
the head of an army, he could not have 
been more impressed with the dignity of 
his position. 

The guests proceeded to seat them- 
selves, and Ruth was about to slip into 
a chair at a corner of the table beside her 
aunt, when the old head-servant inter- 
posed, with much bowing and scraping. 

“ No, miss ; I ax pardon, miss, but dis 
ain’t be your seat, miss,” he said, with a 
dab of the head forward and a kick of the 
foot backward at each pause ; and, con- 
ducting her to the opposite side of the 
table, pointed out a plate upon which lay 
an exquisitely-arranged bouquet of white 
camellias and autumn roses. Ruth re- 
garded the flowers with pleased surprise, 
and turned upon Uncle Aby with a look 
of inquiry. 

“ It is only a little compliment, my 
dear,” said Mr. Bruen, whose attention 
had been attracted by the old negro’s 
manoeuvre, “ that Aby has paid you on 
your return.” 

“No, sir; but I ax pardon, sir, fur it 
wasn’t me done it, massa; I wouldn’t ’a 
ben so indigenous said poor old Aby, 
making a leap in the dark invidious. 
“ I’d ’a made a Coquet for all de ladies 
ef it had ’a been me done it,” continued 
the sable Talleyrand, with a bow and 
scrape all around the table ; “but it was 
Mass’ Bruen, — he put ’em dar hissef, wi’ 
his own hands, and he say dey was for 
his sister Ruth, and say she must set dar.’’ 

Mr. Bruen fairly stood agape at this un- 
heard-of amenity on the part of the young 
savage, while Ruth, delighted and grat- 
ified, gathered up her flowers, and placed 
them in a goblet of water by her side. 

It was not until breakfast was nearly 
over that George Dalton, habitually a 
late riser, made his appearance, bearing 
in his face, Audley observed with regret, 
visible marks of the past night’s dissipa- 
tion. He paid his respects to the com- 


MR, BRUEN AS EMFOF EXTRAORDINARY. 


69 


pany with a scarcely-perceptible incli- 
nation of the head, and then taking a 
leisurely survey of the table, dropped 
into a vacant seat beside Ruth, while his 
uncle, making an abrupt transition from 
the merits of snipe and sausages, upon 
which he had been discoursing the mo- 
ment before, proceeded to make George’s 
delinquencies the text of a harangue upon 
the virtues of punctuality and early ris- 
ing, in which Jdr. Franklin’s famous fal- 
lacy figured with due solemnity, and half 
the crimes and miseries of human life 
were shown to be the direct offspring of 
lying abed too late. 

George, in the mean time, paid not the 
slightest attention to the oracles the old 
gentleman was delivering for his benefit, 
but, fixing his eyes upon his fair neighbor, 
regarded her attentively for some mo- 
ments without speaking, then, apparently 
pleased with the result of his first quiet 
survey, he coolly pushed aside Bruen‘s 
bouquet, that seemed to interfere with 
his view, and, leaning one arm on the 
table, continued his inspection of her 
countenance. Ruth made an indignant 
gesture towards replacing the flowers, 
but was forestalled by George, who, with- 
out appearing to notice her resentment, 
and looking most provokingly uncon- 
scious of having done anything out of 
the way, quietly placed the flowers be- 
yond her reach, and then proceeded to 
make himself known. 

‘‘ Since nobody seems disposed to in- 
troduce us,” he said, “ I suppose we 
must contrive to get acquainted without 
that formality, and if you are, as I pre- 
sume, my newly-arrived cousin from New 
. Orleans, I trust I am not taking too great 
a liberty in claiming a share of your no- 
tice. There was a time,” he continued, 
laughing, “ when you did not deny me 
any cousinly privilege I chose to claim, — 
but I see that you have lost all recollec- 
tion of your childish friendship for George 
Dalton.” 

Ruth gave a slight start at the name. 
It had a familiar sound, and brought back 
to her mind the long-forgotten image of a 
tall youth in military dress, who had 
visited Sandowne occasionally during her 
childhood, and made a great pet of her. 
She remembered now, with a blush, her 
childish fondness for him, and the kisses 
and caresses her innocent lips had be- 
stowed upon her youthful hero. She 
raised her eyes to the speaker with a 
look of recognition, but the handsome, 
dissipated face bending over her Avas so 
unlike the fresh, happy, boyish counte- 


nance of her childhood’s friend, that she 
turned away, pained and disappointed, 
wdthout saying a Avord. 

“You don’t seem disposed to acknoAvl- 
edge the relationship,” said George, ob- 
serving her embarrassment. “Well, 
perhaps you are right, for I don't knoAV 
that I am much of a credit to the family, 
and you needn’t claim kin with me if you 
don’t like ; but I do declare,” he added, 
taking up his knife and fork, “it don’t 
look civilized for us to sit here together 
during the whole of breakfast and not ex- 
change a single word. I Avish you would 
say something to me. lust for appearances’ 
sake.” 

Ruth began to laugh in spite of her- 
self. Drunken vagabond though he Avas, 
there was something about George Dalton 
that no man, Avoman, or child could ever 
resist. He was tolerated, humored even, 
in things that would not have been en- 
dured an instant in any other man *, and 
while the world looked grave, and shook 
its head, and warned its daughters against 
him, it could not, somehow, wholly sub- 
tract itself from his influence. Ruth, who 
but a moment before had thought of 
quitting the table to get rid of him, now 
felt sorry when she saw the rest of the 
company rising to go. 

“It is too late to think of our table 
manners now, as breakfast is over with 
the rest of us,’^ she said, smiling, as she 
rose from her chair. 

“ And you are going to leave me to 
finish mine alone? That’s worse than 
unneighborly, it’s ” 

“ Only the natural consequence of 
being too late,” put in Ruth, with mock 
solemnity, and a sidelong glance at her 
uncle. 

“ This is the first positive experience I 
have ever had of the moral my uncle has 
so long been trying to impress upon me,” 
said George. “ There, you have actually 
surprised me into a compliment.” 

“ I hope you won’t suffer any loss of 
appetite from the unwonted exertion,” 
said Ruth, gayly, and glided from the 
room. 


CHAPTER XV. 

MR. BRUEN AS ENVOY EXTRAORDINARY. 

On the second morning after Ruth’s 
arrival at SandoAvne it was discovered, by 
scouts sent out for the purpose, that the 


70 


A FAMILY SECRET. 


waters of Chickassennee Swamp had sub- 
sided sufficiently for her to proceed on to 
her father’s house. Mr. and Mrs. Bruen 
determined to accompany her, and the 
Miss Norgoods, Avith two of their cousins, 
having kindly volunteered to spend a few 
da3"s with Claude at her own home, she 
invited Malvern, and a number of other 
young officers who w^ere visitors at San- 
dowme, to join the party at the AVhite 
House, as Mr. Harfleur’s place w^as called. 

The family coach of the Bruens was a 
marvelous structure, — a sort of cross be- 
tween an old-fashioned carriage and a 
peddler’s wagon, that went by the name 
of “Noah’s Ark,” from the old coachman, 
who was called “Uncle Noah.” It was, 
moreover, fairly entitled, by its venerable 
age, its wonderful storage capacities, and 
the heterogeneous character of its cargoes, 
to rank with that noted scriptural struc- 
ture. For all kinds of service, whether 
to fetch a bale of dry goods or a bevy of 
beauties from South Ambury, Uncle Noah 
and the ark were in requisition, while a 
handsome carriage and two modern phae- 
tons stood in the coach-house moulding 
away for want of use. 

But though it had seen its best days 
long ago, and was now getting very shaky 
about the joints, the ark was as comfort- 
able an old rattletrap as ever was set upon 
wheels, — easy-going as a rocking-chair, 
and very popular with the ladies, because 
they could pack into it flounces and all 
without mashing. 

There was a great stir that morning 
getting vehicles and horses ready, and 
another great stir to get the ladies ready, 
— for who ever heard of a woman being 
ready to start anywhere in time? And 
Mr. Bruen. who made a hobby of punc- 
tuality, would fume and fret if the car- 
riage was kept w^aiting an instant, as 
though it were an express-train running 
on schedule time. At last, when all had 
departed except the old ark, which was to 
convey Mrs. Bruen and her two nieces, 
Mr. Bruen himself set out on the little 
bay nag he was accustomed to ride by a 
near cut to the White House. On account 
of the high water, it w^ould be necessary 
for the carriages to take a circuitous 
route by what w^as known as the “ Old 
Moss Bottom Ford-,” while Mr. Bruen, 
by taking advantage of a narrow crossing 
lower down the stream, would be able to 
reach the White House several hours 
ahead of them and give notice of Ruth’s 
arrival, which he had his owm reasons for 
supposing would not be a pleasant sur- 
prise to Julian Harfleur. 


The place knowm as the White House 
had been originally settled by Mr. Har- 
fleur’s father-in-law, Randolph Bruen. 
The house was quite a pretentious edifice 
for that part of the w^orld, being a two- 
story framed building that had once been 
dignified with a coat of paint, — whence its 
name, bestowed in wondering admiration 
by the country people, unaccustomed to 
more ambitious structures than the rude 
but comfortable log cabins with which 
even the great planters usually contented 
themselves. A broad wooden colonnade 
— that architectural anomaly to wffiich 
Southern houses owe half their comfort — 
ran all around the house, protecting the 
interior against the glare of an almost 
tropical sun and furnishing a delightful 
promenade. On the western side the 
spaces betw^een the columns were filled in 
with trellis-work for the support of creep- 
ing vines, wdiich clambered up to the 
roof and fell back again in showers of 
gorgeous blossoms, that rendered the air 
in spring-time almost oppressive with 
their fragrance. In winter, when flow^ers 
were wanting, the changeless green of 
the rose and jessamine-vines produced a 
scarcely less picturesque effect, folding 
themselves around the stout wooden col- 
umns in many a serpentine coil, or tum- 
bling headlong to the ground in a sombre 
cataract of green and gray. On touching 
the earth many of these vines had taken 
root again, and overwhelmed with their 
leafy spray a row of wild olives and 
willow-oaks that bordered a walk running 
just outside the piazza, converting its 
once broad, graveled area into a narrow 
tunnel under a vault of living green. 

The garden, though bearing traces of 
careful culture in former days, appeared 
to have been neglected by its present 
owners, a circumstance which, far from 
diminishing, greatly enhanced its beau- 
ties, by giving nature a larger share in 
them. Here, the wild bamboo and scarlet 
trumpet-vine might be seen interlacing 
their tendrils with the rarest of creeping 
roses ; there, the wild azalea rivaled in its 
beaut}^ the proud camellia, and the pale 
swamp-lily bloomed side by side with the 
crimson amaryllis. The walks in many 
places were so choked with overgrown 
hedges and tangled vines that it was not 
easy to force a way through them, but 
they well repaid the trouble by furnishing 
a thousand little shady nooks where the 
loiterer might linger all a summer’s day 
safe from the obtrusive sunshine. 

The house faced the river, which here 
bent itself into a long horse-shoe curve. 


MR. BRUEN AS ENVOY EXTRAORDINARY. 


71 


and was situated on a bluff overlooking 
the stream. This bluff, though rising 
only some forty or fifty feet, was a very 
respectable elevation for that flat coun- 
try ; and its situation at the head of the 
curve, commanding as it did an extended 
view both up and down the stream, ren- 
dered it a picturesque, if not an imposing 
site for a building. The space between 
the arms of the bend, on the other side 
of the river, was a low hammock, 
covered with an almost impenetrable 
thicket of amphibious shrubs and gigan- 
tic creepers, beyond which a field of old 
pines reared their tall, skeleton trunks, 
looming in the distance like the masts 
and spars of a stranded fleet. Both 
banks of the river were lined with mag- 
nolias, water-oaks, and cypress, whose 
rich foliage, shrouded though it was un- 
der a melancholy drapery of long, gray 
moss, afforded a pleasant relief to the 
eye from the eternal pines that sur- 
rounded the house in every other di- 
rection. 

It was said that old Randolph Bruen 
had selected this picturesque site in def- 
erence to the taste of his daughter 
Nettie, who had her way about every- 
thing, and that most of the improvements 
made upon it were at her suggestion. 
However that may be, the founder of the 
White House seemed to have been guided 
by very correct ideas of the fitness of 
things, and in this respect his successor, 
likewise, was evidently not deficient. 
There were none of those startling incon- 
gruities that used to perplex and astonish 
strangers amid the rude magnificence of 
our old plantation life. Audley observed, 
as he entered the Harfleur estate, that 
the gates through which they passed 
turned smoothly on their hinges, the road 
leading to the house was neatly cause- 
wayed in marshy places, and shaded by 
a fine avenue of live-oaks, while the 
grounds immediately about the house 
were surrounded with neat picket-fences, 
instead of the rude pine rails that dis- 
figured the inclosures at Sandowne. But 
for all that, he could not help feeling 
that Sandowne had, somehow, the advan- 
tage over its more ambitious neighbor. 
There was a cheeriness, a home-look 
about the jolly old log cabin, that were 
wanting to the colonnaded villa ; he missed 
the merry song and loud “yah, yah” of 
the negroes, the busy, joyous, stirring 
life that had greeted his first arrival at 
Sandowne. It was the time of day at 
which most of the hands were off in the 
fields at work, but the few they met be- 


longing to the estate were poorly clad, 
and wore a dull, cowed look, in striking 
contrast with the greasy contentment 
that beamed in the shining black faces 
of George Bruen’ s dependents. 

Audley and George Dalton, who were 
on horseback, had stayed behind with 
the ark, which Uncle Noah had been 
ordered to keep a little in the rear of the 
other vehicles ; so that when they drew 
up at the door of the White House the 
master, notified by the arrival of the 
other guests, was standing on the piazza 
to receive them. These sudden surprises 
were so common in those days, and the 
planters’ style of living so well adapted 
to the purposes of hospitality, that the 
arrival of any number of unexpected 
guests never created the least disturbance 
in the domestic arrangements of a family, 
beyond the ordinary bustle of receiving 
and welcoming visitors. Even this was 
conducted with such order and propriety 
at the White House, that good Mrs. 
Bruen, accustomed to the boisterous hos- 
pitality of her own establishment, in- 
wardly congratulated herself that Mr. 
Bruen had broken the news in such good 
time to Julian, and prepared the way for 
Ruth’s reception. Instead of the general 
hurly-burly that had greeted Audley’ s 
first arrival at Sandowne, three or four 
well-trained servants moved about silently, 
unloading the carriages, and assisting the 
ladies with their parcels ; while a hand- 
some, middle-aged mulatto, attended by 
a troop of housemaids, over whom she 
seemed to exercise a sort of general super- 
vision, received the ladies with an air 
half regal, half obsequious, and conducted 
them to their apartments. There was a 
whispered scandal in the neighborhood, 
to the effect that this woman, upon whom 
George Dalton had conferred the sobri- 
quet of Cleopatra, from her magnificent 
air, filled the double office of mistress 
and maid in her master’s establishment. 
With this, however, the present narrative 
has nothing to do, though it will bo seen 
in the sequel that Julian Harfleur’s char- 
acter was such as to warrant almost any 
suspicion against it. • 

Though Colonel Malvern was far from 
favorably impressed by what he had 
heard of Mr. Harfleur, his curiosity had 
been excited in no small degree concern- 
ing him. It was, therefore, with no 
ordinary interest that he observed the 
master of the White House, who, recog- 
nizing the ark as it drew up at the gate, 
and judging that Mrs. Bruen and Claude 
were within, immediately disengaged him- 


72 


A FAMILY SECRET. 


self from his other guests and advanced 
down the front walk to receive them. 

lie was a tall, spare man, well past the 
prime of life, faultlessly dressed, and of 
a most striking aspect. There was a 
foreign air about him, which is not to be 
w^ondered at, since his parents were 
French creoles, who had fled from St. 
Domingo during Toussaint’s insurrection. 
His carriage, though haughty, was grace- 
ful and elegant in the extreme ; and it 
cannot be denied that Julian Harfleur, at 
the age of fifty-two, was still a strikingly- 
handsome man, — but it was a dark, ter- 
rible beauty that made the beholder shud- 
der. His eyes w^ere deep-set, black, and 
piercing, flashing with a brightness that 
seemed as if it could scorch and wither, 
but never warm and lighten. His mous- 
tache and eyebrows were but slightly 
touched with gray, while his hair was 
almost perfectly white, and contrasted 
strangely with the dark olive of his com- 
plexion. The lips w^ere pressed together 
with rigid firmness, and there was a stern, 
iron look about the face that reminded 
Audley of a portrait he had seen at 
Brussels of the terrible Duke of Alva. 
He remembered the shuddering horror 
with which Ruth had tried to shut out the 
memory of that dark, beautiful face, as 
it rose before her in fancy, and he turned 
his eyes suddenly from the father and 
fixed them upon the daughter. She had 
lowered her veil, so that he could not see 
her changing color ; but, as he assisted 
her to alight, he felt her hand tremble 
violently, and she leaned hefivily upon 
his arm, as though scarce able to support 
herself. 

Claude, brushing lightly past them, 
bounded to meet her father ; throwing her 
arms about his neck, kissing him, and 
stroking his gray hairs with her pretty 
fingers, just as if he had been like any 
other father. The iron look melted away, 
and the scorching light of the fierce black 
eyes softened into something like healthy 
sunshine, as Julian Harfleur surveyed his 
beautiful daughter with an air which 
plainly told that all his affection, and, 
what was much more to him, his pride 
and ambition, were centred upon her. 
Her presence seemed to diffuse sunshine 
around him, and gave to his native ele- 
gance and grace of manner a blandness 
and cordiality almost attractive. He 
received Audley very graciousl}^; then 
turned with courtly deference to Mrs. 
Bruen, who had purposely lingered be- 
hind with Ruth. The latter, encouraged 
by the blandness of his manner, lifted her 


veil, and fixed upon him an appealing 
look, as her aunt drew her timidly for- 
ward, saying, with a forced smile, — 

“I suppose, Julian, Mr. Bruen has 
already prepared you for the return of 
this wanderer?’^ 

If the Gorgon’s head had suddenly been 
unveiled before him it could not have 
produced a more petrifying effect upon 
J ulian Harfleur. He stood as if paralyzed, 
and riveted upon the fair face before him 
such a look as no words can describe. It was 
not astonishment, it was not fear, it was 
not anger nor abhorrence, that stamped 
itself on his features, but a mingling of all ; 
while a slight quivering of the muscles 
about the mouth, and a sudden rigidness 
that came over the hand he Avas in the 
very act of extending, changing the cor- 
dial grasp to a convulsive clutch in the air, 
betrayed the silent workings of some ter- 
rible passion. In an instant, hoAvever, 
he recovered himself, and overcame his 
emotion before an ordinary observer would 
have had time to perceive it. A frigid 
smile overspread the iron features, like 
winter sunlight struggling through a 
stormy sky ; the clinched fingers relaxed 
enough to extend themselves mechanically 
towards Ruth, Avho touched them as me- 
chanically with her own, and turned away 
with a look of unutterable bitterness. 
Mr. Harfleur then offered his arm to Mrs. 
Bruen, and Audley overheard her say, as 
he followed them into the house, — 

“ I was afraid, Julian, the likeness to 
Nettie -would overcome you. It’s like 
meeting her ghost; and I knew you 
couldn’t stand it if taken unawares.” 

But Julian Harfleur was taken una-. 
Avares. When Mr. Bruen, who had been 
dispatched in the emergency to inform 
him of his daughter’s arrival, had gone 
over two-thirds of the way, he discovered 
that one of his horse’s shoes was loose, 
and stopped at a little smithy by the road- 
side to have it mended. The operation 
did not occupy more than half an hour, 
but the old gentleman in the mean time 
having become absorbed in a mental dis- 
sertation upon the merits of salt-water 
baths as a preventive of rheumatism, — 
for, in addition to his other vagaries, he 
was a bit of an amateur quack, — did not 
observe when he remounted that his 
horse’s head Avas turned in the direction 
from which he had just come; and the 
sagacious animal, remembering the gen- 
erous barns and corn-cribs of Sandowne, 
put back tOAvards them Avith such good 
Avill that an hour later, precisely at 
the time when Uncle Noah’s ark was 


WAS IT A GHOST? 


73 


rumblin^: up the avenue that led to the 
White House, the old gentleman was 
suddenly roused from his reverie by the 
stopping of his nag, and, looking out 
from the depths of his shirt-collar, was 
surprised and bewildered beyond measure 
to find himself standing in front of his 
own door. 


CHAPTER XVI. 

WAS IT A GHOST? 

Some half a mile from Mr. Harfleur’s 
dwelling, near the spot where the public 
road entered his estate, there stood a long, 
steep-roofed cabin of hewn logs, with the 
gable end facing the road, and surmounted 
by a rude wooden cross. This was the 
place where such of the neighboring 
families as adhered to the Episcopal form 
of worship assembled once a month, un- 
der the auspices of a clergyman from 
South Ambur}", to join in that beautiful 
liturgy whose prayers and anthems, hal- 
lowed by the lips of saints and martyrs, 
have ascended through long .ages a cloud 
of sweet incense to heaven, and seem to 
the devout heart almost like the utterances 
of inspiration. Here, too, in this remote 
solitude, Avhere the wind sounds night 
and day its ceaseless requiem in the pines, 
they laid their dead. Here, mouldering 
away in her native dust, lay the beautiful 
“ Antoinette, daughter of /Randolph and 
Lilias Bruen, and wife of Julian Har- 
fleur. Born May 4th, 1821 ; died Decem- 
ber 6th, 1849, in the 28th year of her age.” 
So says the epitaph on the plain marble 
cross that marks her resting-place under 
the wild myrtle-tree in a solitary corner of 
that solitary church-yard. Poor girl ! she 
had sad need of rest, when tired and foot- 
sore she sank down scarce half-way on her 
journey of life, and laid, her weary head 
upon the lap of mother earth. She had 
been a famous beauty in her day, — a will- 
ful, spoiled, capricious beauty, — whose 
charms proved at last only the snare in 
which her happiness was lost forever. 

As Noah’s Ark went lumbering on its 
way towards the White House, Ruth had 
looked eagerly round for some familiar 
object, but everything seemed hazy and 
confused. The river and the pines were 
there, with due succession of field, forest, 
and jungle, but somehow everything had 
transposed itself in her memory ; nothing 


seemed in its natural place until the steep 
roof of the little pine church, surmounted 
by its wooden cross, rose upon her view. 
It was indistinct at first, and seen only 
by snatches through the intervening pines, 
but it was like an old landmark to her 
memory. From that moment everything 
seemed to glide into its natural place, and 
she knew what to look for next. She 
remembered the cluster of white tomb- 
stones grouped around this little church 
in the wilderness, and she knew long 
before they came in sight of it where to 
look for the white cross that had been put 
there just a little while before she left her 
home. 

Ah, there it stands now, gleamingr as 
of old among the myrtle-leaves, a little 
weather-stained by the storms of all these 
winters, but looking so like it did on 
that day fifteen years ago, when her old 
mammy had taken her to say “ good-b’ye” 
to mamma, that she almost wonders if the 
traces of her childish tears are still visible 
on the polished stone, and if the wreath 
of white lilies her hand had placed there 
still hangs upon the cross. No ; it is 
only a festoon of gray moss that has 
dropped from an overhanging myrtle- 
bough and lodged upon Nettie’s tomb- 
stone, waving in solemn measure to the 
melancholy music of the pines. Some- 
thing else moves too, but Ruth scarcely 
perceives it as she whirls rapidly by. A 
strange man of ruffianly appearance is 
standing before the cross, tracing out 
with his finger the inscription obscured 
by mould and moss *, but, on hearing the 
sound of wheels, he starts, turns suddenly 
away, and vanishes among the tombs, 
leaving upon Ruth’s mind, as the whole 
scene fades from her view, a vague im- 
pression of having seen a human figure 
flit through the church-yard. 

But the white cross, with the memo- 
ries it awakened, did not pass from her 
mind. She longed to return to the spot 
before it was well out of her sight, and 
the painful tumult of emotion raised in 
her breast by her father’s greeting made 
her but yearn the more towards the 
shrine where her tenderest affections lay 
entombed. Her first thought on reach- 
ing the White House was to seek out 
that good old nurse, the only being, be- 
sides her mother, who had ever shown 
much regard for the forlorn and desolate 
child. She learned, with pain and sur- 
prise, that her mammy had been sold to 
traders years ago when she herself was 
first sent away, and Cleopatra, com- 
monly known by the less ambitious 


74 


A FAMILY SECEFT. 


designation of ‘^Manm Judith,” in- 
stalled in her place as housekeeper and 
head-servant at the White House. 

Disappointed of finding the only friend 
she sought among the living, her thoughts 
turned once more towards the dead. So, 
while the rest of the company were as- 
sembling in the drawing-room before 
dinner, Ruth put on her hat and shawl 
and set out unobserved on her solitary 
walk. She did not stop to reflect on the 
imprudence of going unattended at that 
late hour over an unfrequented road. It 
was a relief to get out of a house from 
wdiich everything that loved her had 
been banished, and where she felt her- 
self an alien and an intruder, though it 
was her father’s house. 

Half an hours rapid walking brought 
her to the end of the long sandy lane 
that lay between old Randolph Bruen’s 
live-oak avenue and the primeval pines 
that shut in the little forest church-yard 
where her mother lay. She had not en- 
countered a living creature by the way, 
and no sound, save a distant tinkling 
from some homeward-bound herd, came 
to interrupt the melancholy course of 
her reflections. The scene and the hour 
seemed to accord with Ruth’s feelings, 
and she walked along, absently crushing 
under her feet the great brown pine- 
cones that lay scattered on the ground, 
until she arrived at the church-yard gate. 
She paused a moment, with her hand on 
the latch, while a flood of old recollec- 
tions came rushing back upon her mind. 
She remembered how often she had been 
led through that very gate by her moth- 
er’s hand, and how proudly she used to 
carry the little black book with the gilt 
cross on the back out of which her 
mother used to read her prayers, and 
how she, with childish ambition, would 
look over and make believe that she was/ 
reading too. It seemed to her that her 
mamma was very fond of going to church, 
and used to say a great many prayers. 
She was very sad, too, and used to weep 
bitterly at times when Mr. Harfleur was 
out of the way. Could it have been that 
she was grieving over his absence? At 
such times, too, she would seem doubly 
fond of her little Ruth, and would cover 
her with caresses and call her her conso- 
lation and her only joy. Frequently 
mamma would walk with Ruth and her 
old mammy to the little church and play 
on the orgnn for hours together and 
sing beautiful anthems, and when Ruth 
tried to sing with her, would smile, and 
call her mamma’s little mocking-bird. 


She remembered how proud she used to 
feel when her mamma led the music in 
church on Sundays, and how she used to 
stand on tip-toe to turn over the leaves, 
and what a grand thing she thought it to 
play an organ in a church. Then came 
to her mind the last time she had gone 
there with her mamma. It could not 
have been long before her death, and 
was on just such an evening as this. 
The great brown cones lay scattered 
upon the ground as now, for she had 
picked up one to play with, she remem- 
bered, and her mamma had paused once 
or twice during their walk to look up at 
the gray sky and listen to the solemn 
whispers in the pines. After they went 
into the church, she did not sing, but 
sat longer than usual at the organ, play- 
ing something that reminded her little 
daughter very much of the music the 
wind was making in the pines ; and the 
next moment Ruth started to find herself 
actually humming a strain of that long- 
forgotten melody. If there is such a 
thing as the ghost of a sound, this was 
one that came floating back so strangely 
in Ruth’s memory. 

There was something in the sound of 
her own voice that awed her back into 
silence ; a sudden feeling of superstitious 
fear came over her. Was that a human 
step she heard? Was it a human form 
she saw flit an instant among the tombs, 
then vanish? She advanced a step, 
and looked around ; there was no sound 
save the endless sighing of the wind, no 
movement save the trailing moss as it 
swayed to anA fro in the breeze. She 
smiled at her childish terrors, and, open- 
ing the gate quickly, went and flung her- 
self at the foot of the weather-stained 
cross that marked Nettie Harfleur’s grave. 

You who know what it is to kneel upon 
a mother’s grave in anguish and desola- 
tion of spirit : you who have longed to 
rest your weary heads upon the cold turf 
above her breast, and to embrace the very 
clods that hide your treasure from your 
sight, — you can tell with what hopeless 
yearning Ruth embraced that senseless 
stone and poured forth her overflowing 
heart in prayer to the soul whose flight 
had made such a great void in her life. 
There is nothing like a mother’s love, in 
heaven above or earth beneath, save the 
love that the great Father of us all bears 
to his children. It is so unobtrusive, so 
all-pervading, that, like the pure «air of 
heaven, we hardly know what it is till it 
is gone. Unlike other Iiuman affections, 
it is self-subsisting and indestructible; 


WAS IT A GHOSTf 


75 


we could not make our mothers cease to 
love us if we would. We may repay 
their affection with baseness and ingrati- 
tude, we may wring and break their 
hearts if we will, but can never harden 
them against us. The more we wound 
their bosoms, the closer do they press us 
to them ; the more we are despised, for- 
saken, and cast off by all the world, the 
wider do they open their arms to receive 
us. And how few of us ever think of all 
this, till the time comes when the memory 
of it mingles our grief with the gall and 
w^ormwood of remorse ! 

Little children, when their mothers die, 
are spared this pang of self-reproach 
that comes to us all when we look upon 
our mother’s grave; and though at first 
the anguish of their young hearts may be 
keen as a two-edged sword, their feelings 
are elastic, and some new affection soon 
springs up to replace the old love that re- 
mains only as a sweet and precious mem- 
ory. Such, however, was not the case 
with Ruth Ilarfleur. No kind aunty or 
good old grandmother had come to fill a 
mother’s place for her. The nuns of St. 
Sacrament and St. Catherine’s had been 
very kind to her, — Father Perline had 
been more than kind, — but what was there 
in all this to satisfy a craving heart? 
Fifteen years ago, she had turned from 
that grave a forlorn and desolate child, 
and now she came back to it a forlorn 
and desolate woman. No new affection 
had wrapped her in its folds, and her 
grief for the dead came back for a mo- 
ment, as fresh and poignant as on that 
dreadful day, long ago, when she had 
clung, a frightened child, to her old 
mammy’s apron, and heard the clods fall 
with a heavy thud upon her mother’s 
coffin. The memory of it all came back 
to her now as vividly as if it had been 
but yesterday. She saw again the little 
trundle-bed in which she used to sleep, 
with her old mammy bending over her in 
the dim taper-light, and heard again the 
words that had so bewildered her on 
waking, “ Come, my baby, your mamma’s 
almost gone.” She remembered how she 
had been carried in her little night-gown 
into the room where her mother lay, with 
a great many people sobbing around, 
and how she began to cry because the 
other people were crying. She remem- 
bered how some lady sitting by the bed 
had taken her in her lap and raised her 
up so that she could see her mother’s 
face. She remembered the long, labored 
breathing, so loud that it could be heard 
all over the room, and the strange, fright- 


ened feeling that came over her, as she 
shrank back with awe, for the first time 
in her life not daring to touch her 
mother’s lips. Then came another long 
gasp, followed by another, fainter, and an- 
other, fainter still, — then all was hushed. 
She knew then that this was death, *and 
broke forth into loud lamentations. Sud- 
denly, she heard her father’s stern voice 
order some one to carry that child from 
the room, and felt herself borne off again 
in her old mammy’s arms. The next 
thing she remembered, was standing at 
an open window wfith her mammy, watch- 
ing the first faint streaks of the cheerless 
winter dawn break through the eastern 
sky. She heard the old negro say, point- 
ing towards the dawn, “ Her spirit’s flew 
out to meet the light, and the heaven- 
bells is ringin’ for to let her in.” She 
looked out for the flying spirit, and list- 
ened for the heaven-bells, but saw only 
the rising mists of morning, and heard 
but the rushing of the river and the sigh- 
ing of the wind in the pines. 

Ruth sat for nearly an hour, lost in 
these mournful reflections, and did not 
observe that the day was rapidly declin- 
ing. The sun had not yet set, but the 
sky was obscured by low clouds, and the 
towering shafts of the surrounding pines 
overshadowed the little church-yard and 
made it dusk there, even when the sun 
was high. At last she dried her eyes, 
and perceiving, with some anxiety, the 
lateness of the hour, gathered up her 
gloves and shawl and was preparing to 
leave, when she suddenly became aware 
of a human face looking at her from 
behind the marble cross, — white and 
motionless in the twilight, as if it had 
been a marble face. Paralyzed with fear, 
she sank back on the turf and sat staring 
in mute* horror at this strange apparition, 
whose gaze seemed to hold her in a spell, 
like a bird charmed by a snake. Before 
she could recover herself the apparition 
made a sudden movement, and a tall, 
powerful figure rushed from behind the 
cross, and, seizing both her hands in a hot, 
frenzied grasp, fixed its eyes upon her 
face with a look that riveted her gaze as 
if she had been mesmerized. She was 
powerless either to move or speak. She 
tried to scream, but her voice stuck in her 
throat as in a nightmare. 

The man, a ruffianly vagabond in ap- 
pearance and dress, yet had a certain air 
of nobility in his bearing, and seemed 
greatly disturbed at the fright he had 
given her. He relaxed his grasp to a 
gentle pressure, and said, soothingly, — 


76 


A FAMILY SECRET, 


‘‘Don’t be alarmed, Ruth; I am the 
last man in the world that would hurt 
YOU. Just let me look into your face a 
little, and ” 

The sound of his voice roused her suffi- 
ciently to make a struggle for her release, 
and in doing so she freed one hand from 
Ills grasp, but left the costly ring that 
encircled her finger in his palm. lie ex- 
amined it thoughtfully, while he still held 
her by one hand, then replaced it gently 
on her finger. 

“ You would take better care of this, 
Ruth,” he said, in a voice unsteady with 
emotion, “if you knew its history. This 
ring belonged to one of your race who 
was a famous singer, such as you wish to 
be, and it was first flung to her, just as 
it was to you, in the moment of triumph 
that followed one of her most brilliant 
performances. Your mother wore it too, 
a little while, and once she seemed to 
prize it, but ” 

He stopped short, as though doubtful 
whether to proceed, and gazed sadly and 
wistfully into her face. He made a 
motion once or twice, as though about to 
speak, but finally thought better of it and 
remained silent. He held both Ruth’s 
hands in one of his for a moment, and, 
taking her delicate chin in the other, 
turned her face up once more toAvards his 
own, gazed long and earnestly at it, then 
released her, saying, — 

“You had better go home now. I’ll 
stand at the gate here and watch till you 
are safe out of the woods. And hark you, 
child !” raising his finger with a warning 
gesture, “never mention this meeting till 
the time has come and I l)id you speak.” 

Ruth needed no second admonition, but 
bounded away the minute his grasp was 
loosened, and fled as fast as her feet 
would carry her. The man, after first 
assuring himself by a cautious survey of 
the road that no one was watching him, 
stood at the gate and looked after her 
till she was out of sight, then slunk away 
into the forest. 


CHAPTER XYII. 

THE YOUNG SAVAGE TAMED. 

Ruth never once paused in her flight 
till she reached the entrance of the lane, 
where, somewhat reassured on emerging 
from the obscurity of the forest into the 


cheerful light of the open fields, she halted 
a moment to take breath, and, assuring 
herself at the same time that no one 
was following, pursued her Avay more 
leisurely. She now had time to collect 
her thoughts, and recover a little from 
the terror and confusion of her recent 
singular encounter. She had been too 
much frightened at first to heed the stran- 
ger’s words, but not a syllable had escaped 
her memory, and, as she began to ponder 
over what had happened, her astonish- 
ment and perplexity increased. She 
looked at the gem that glittered on her 
finger Avith a kind of awe, as though it 
had been a living eye, and wondered if 
what the stranger had said about it could 
be true, and how he came to know the 
circumstances under which she had re- 
ceived it. And what did he mean by say- 
ing that an ancestress of hers had been a 
public singer? It could not be old Mrs. 
Lilias Bruen, whose tombstone had borne 
witness tliese forty years and more to her 
many domestic virtues : tombstones didn’t 
talk that way about actresses and artistes. 
Perhaps he referred to her fixther’s mother, 
Madame Harfleur, whom she had never 
thought of before, and xvhose Christian 
name she only happened to know because 
her sister bore the same — Claude Eloise, — 
yes, that sounded more theatrical than 
plain Lilias Bruen ; and then, that would 
account for her father’s having so persist- 
ently opposed her own artistic aspira- 
tions ; he shared the unreasonable preju- 
dices of society, and was ashamed of his 
mother’s profession. That was the reason, 
perhaps, Avhy he had shut her up so early 
in a convent, to destroy, if possible, the 
taste that had manifested itself in her 
from childhood. 

But then, if all the stranger said Avas 
true, where had the ring been wmiidering 
all this time? and what strange accident 
had brought it into her possession at last? 
And how c.ame this miserable vagabond 
to know of her fleeting triumph under 
another name, in a city hundreds of miles 
aAA^ay ? and how came he to knoAv so much 
about the history of her family ? 

But was this man a common vagabond? 
She had only seen him in the obscure 
twilight of the forest, and Avas too much 
frightened then to notice particularly, but 
in spite of his squalid habit and rude ex- 
terior, there AAms something in his manner, 
something in the very tones of his Amice, 
that seemed to mark him as one accus- 
tomed to better things. Could he have 
been some poor maniac left to folloAv his 
own AAmndering fancies? No, he did not 


THE YOUNG SAVAGE TAMED. 


77 


look like that; and yet, what made him 
gaze at her in that strange wild way? and 
what could he mean by that last injunc- 
tion to keep silence till he bade her speak? 
Did he expect to meet her again? 

The more Ruth pondered over all these 
things the more perplexing did they seem 
to her. She was so absorbed in her own 
reflections, and so unnerved by the fright 
she had received, that she started in alarm 
at the sound of approaching footsteps, and 
her blanched cheeks did not lose their 
whiteness even when, on raising her eyes, 
she found herself face to face with Mal- 
vern, who was strolling down the avenue 
in quiet enjoyment of his after-dinner 
cigar. The young officer touched his hat 
and was about to pass on without further 
salutation, but as she looked up to ac- 
knowledge the civility he caught sight 
of her face, and suddenly halted, exclaim- 
iiig — 

“ Good heavens, Miss ITarfleur, what is 
the matter? you look as if you had seen 
a ghost ! Has anything happened ? have 
you been frightened in any way?” 

“ N — 0,” faltered Ruth, remembering 
the man’s injunction not to mention their 
interview, but unable to conceal her agita- 
tion. “ I have only been walking very 
fast.” 

^‘Walking fast does not usually make 
people pale,” returned Audley, smiling. 
“ I am afraid you are not well,” he con- 
tinued, with an air of solicitude. “ You 
look tired ; may I not Avalk back to the 
house with you ?” 

No, I am not sick nor tired ; I am 
only very, very miserable !” 

The words seemed to burst from her 
lips in spite of herself ; and, breaking 
abruptly away, she hurried on towards 
the house before Audley had time to say 
another word. He stood looking after 
her for a minute or two, then pursued his 
walk, with a mind as full of confused and 
baffling thoughts as Ruth’s own. 

As she drew near the house, a sound 
of merry voices and laughter fell upon 
her ear, and light forms flitted to and fro 
in the piazza. Claude stood at the head 
of the steps dispensing smiles and glances 
among the knot of admirers clustered 
round her. The eldest Miss Norgood had 
taken George Dalton in tow, and was 
tugging him up and down the piazza, 
talking beautiful sentiment about the 
river view and Owen Meredith’s poems, — 
an infliction under which poor George 
looked unutterably miserable ; the more 
so, as he was always a little foggy after 
dinner, and wasn’t quite sure but he 


might reply, “ I prefer mine straight,” 
every time Miss Norgood said anything 
particularly gushing and poetical about 
the water. Mary Dalton had got a fat 
old commissary major ofi* behind a pillar, 
where she stood rolling cigarettes for 
him, and making believe that she was 
going to smoke one herself, — just for mis- 
chief, you know, — and puckering up her 
little rose-bud mouth with such a pretty 
grace, that the major resolved upon the 
spot to give up all thoughts of Claude 
Harfleur, though he felt morally certain 
she was only waiting for him to propose, 
and put in for the widow. 

Ruth could not enter the house without 
going through the piazza, and she shrank 
from contact with the thoughtless, merry 
crowd, like some poor wounded creature 
of the woods, that steals away from its 
kind to languish and die alone. 

Lifting the garden-latch noiselessly, she 
slipped in unobserved, and, turning down 
a little green alley near the gate, was soon 
lost in the shrubbery. A few turns 
through this labyrinth of vegetation 
brought her to the vine-covered walk 
already described, on the western side of 
the house. Charmed with the retirement 
of the spot, she glided under this tunneled 
network of vines, where, abandoning her- 
self to reflection, she paced dejectedly to 
and fro without perceiving, in the more 
than twilight obscurity of the place, a 
small, dark figure crouched at the foot of 
a spreading willow-oak, and almost con- 
cealed in the trailing vines that clustered 
about it, till, in her third or fourth round, 
she was arrested by a gentle pull at her 
dress. She thought at first it was a thorn 
or brier, and turned to shake her skirts 
free, when a hand was laid timidly on her 
shoulder, and she heard her name whis- 
pered in the darkness. She recognized 
the voice at once, in spite of having, until 
that moment, heard only its harsher ac- 
cents, and exclaimed, seizing the hand 
and pressing it affectionately in both her 
own, — 

“ Why, Bruen, my brother, what are 
you doing here, hid away all alone in this 
dark corner?” 

“Better say what are you doing?” re- 
turned Bruen. “ I’ve come to be out of 
the way, and listen for the music.” 

“ The music ?” 

“Yes. AVhen there’s company, you 
know, they always have music in the 
evening. The drawing-rooms are on this 
side the house, and I come here to listen. 
Nobody else ever comes here, so there’s 
no danger of getting in the way. I anj 


78 


A FAMILY SECRET, 


not allowed to go where I can be seen 
here, or to sit in the wdndow, as I do at 
Sandowne. I wonder what’s the reason 
they don’t begin.” he added, impatiently. 
‘‘ Claude and Miss Norgood are always 
mighty fond of showing off their hands 
on the piano. I have been waiting here 
ever since dinner, and thinking when they 
got through, somebody would ask you to 
play. I’d know it was you the minute 
your fingers touched the piano ; but, in- 
stead of that, here you come moping off 
and hiding under the vines, just as if you 
were crooked too, and mustn’t be seen.” 

Ruth was so moved at this spectacle of 
the neglected boy, crouching like a beast 
outside his father’s door, that tears rose 
unbidden to her eyes, and, in a voice full 
of tenderness and compassion, she ex- 
claimed, — 

“ My poor brother ! is this the way they 
treat you ?” 

Bruen resented the words as if they 
had been a studied insult. 

“ What do you mean ?” he cried, draw- 
ing away from her. “ I don’t want you 
to be pitying me *, you are nothing but an 
object of pity yourself, though you ain’t 
crooked. I’ve been watching you here 
ever so long, when you thought nobody 
was looking, walking up and down in the 
darkness, with your hands clasped on your 
breast, and your head bowed down, look- 
ing as miserable as Phaedra in the play. 
Poor Ruth !” he added, in a softened man- 
ner, “ you looked very unhappy, and I w^as 
sorry for you, and that was why I came 
and spoke to you.” 

Ruth was touched at this evidence of 
the boy’s better nature. 

“Were you sorry for me, Bruen ? were 
you sorry for your poor, unhappy sister?” 
she said, stretching out her hands towards 
him, as eager to invite his sympathy as 
he had been to repel hers. 

“ Yes,” he answered, drawing nearer, 
and his manner softening almost to ten- 
derness. “ I was sorry, because you 
looked unhappy, and you have been good 
to me, — nobody was ever so good before. 
What was the matter, Ruth ? Has he been 
talking to you?” 

“ He — who — what ?” cried Ruth, ex- 
citedly, her thoughts immediately revert- 
ing to the man she had seen in the 
church-yard. 

“ Hush ; you know who,” said the boy. 
“ Don’t talk loud, he’s walking somewhere 
in the garden, and might hear. When I 
heard you were coming to the White 
House to-day, I got into the cotton-wagon 
with Uncle Pompey and came on ahead 


of you. I was watching from behind the 
Cape jessamines w’hen he first met you, 
and I saw him scowl at you just as he 
does at me. What’s the reason he don't 
like you, Ruth? You are not crooked 
nor lame.” 

Ruth breathed more freely on finding 
that Bruen was merely alluding to their 
father. She passed her arm lovingly 
round the poor deformed shoulders, and 
said, in a gentle voice, — 

“ My dear brother, it is not necessary 
to be deformed in body to be unloved ; it 
is a crooked and perverse mind that peo- 
ple hate.” 

“ But you haven’t got a crooked or per- 
verse mind, and yet he hates you. I saw 
it in his eyes,” said Bruen, half returning 
her caress, as though drawn nearer to her 
by the consciousness that they were both 
objects of a common hatred. “ I can’t 
tell why it is,” he continued; “you are as 
handsome as Claude, and a great deal 
better, and yet no one seems glad to see 
you.” 

“No one seems glad to see you.” The 
words sank like a poisoned arrow deep 
into Ruth’s soul. 

“And you, Bruen,” she said ; “are you 
sorry that I have come back?” 

“No,” answered Bruen, earnestly. “I 
was at first, and hated you, because I 
thought you would be like all the rest of 
them ; but you are not like anybody else 
I ever knew, Ruth, and I sha’n’t be angry 
any more if you are sorry for me, for you 
don’t treat me as if you thought I was 
some inferior being whose infirmities 
must be respected. That is why I don’t 
mind your pity, and you may be sorry 
for me now if you like.” 

“No, let me love you instead,” she 
said, soothingly. “ Since nobody seems 
to care for either of us, we will make it 
up to ourselves by caring a great deal for 
each other, won’t "we, Bruen?” 

The boy answered by drawing her face 
down to him and kissing it tenderly, — 
the first time he had ever volunteered 
such a pledge of affection to any living 
creature. 


CHAPTER XVIII. 

A MINISTER OF THE GOSPEL. 

Bruen Harfleur had been the victim 
of two opposite systems of bad training. 
In Mr. Harfleur’ s cold, selfish nature af- 


A MINISTER OF THE GOSPEL, 


79 


fection could not survive the gratification 
that gave it birth. From the day of the 
accident that had changed his beautiful 
boy into an object of pity and loathing, 
the father’s affection seemed changed to 
gall and wormwood, and he inwardly 
cursed the chance that had spared a life 
doomed henceforth to be but a sorrow 
and mortification to him who gave it. 
The bitterness of his disappointment em- 
braced in its blind fury the unfortunate 
object of it, and he deplored the morti- 
fication of his own pride rather than the 
blighting and ruin of the boy’s whole 
life. He could never bear Bruen in his 
sight, and the unhappy child grew up 
to boyhood, abandoned and neglected, 
hardly as civilized as the negroes to 
whose care he was left. He had never 
been allowed even to sit at table with his 
father and sister, but was left to pick up 
his meals like a beggar, in the kitchen, on 
the door-step, wherever and whenever the 
servants chose to give them to him, and, 
but for the voluntary care of the old woman 
Chloe, might have perished of want under 
his father’s roof. A child’s nature is 
keenly sensitive to neglect, and the first 
feelings young Bruen imbibed, leaving 
out that morbid sense of his deformity 
bordering almost upon monomania, were 
an unnatural aversion to his father and 
sister. 

Though Claude had never devoted her- 
self, as some women would have done, to 
the care of her unfortunate brother, she 
could not be accused of positive unkind- 
ness towards him. She was not ill- 
natured, but it had simply never occurred 
to her to disturb herself about a boy who 
took no pains to bring himself to her 
notice. Of course she was sorry for 
Bruen, but then, what could she do? 
There were servants to wait on him, and 
money to buy whatever he wanted, and 
what more did he require? Claude’s 
passive nature could not conceive of any 
harm in simply letting a thing alone •, 
she had been letting things alone all her 
life, and they had always turned out 
exactly as she wished ; why should they 
not do the same for Bruen ? She would 
have been very much astonished had any 
one reproached her with a positive fault 
in merely letting her brother alone, and 
would have burst into tears so prettily, 
and looked such a lovely picture of in- 
jured innocence, that the accuser would 
think he had made a mistake, and that 
Bruen was the party to be reproached 
instead of Claude. 

AVhen Bruen became old enough to 


think a little for himself, he avoided his 
father’s house as much as possible, and 
betook himself to the kind-hearted old 
couple at Sandowne, who saw in his mis- 
fortunes as much occasion for humoring 
and spoiling as his father had found for 
cruelty and neglect. Mr. Harfleur, glad 
to get him out of sight on any terms, en- 
couraged these visits, until the boy had 
come to make Sandowne virtually his 
home, and the occasion of Ruth’s arrival 
was the first for more than twelve months 
on which he had voluntarily set foot in 
his father’s house. 

The extreme indulgence with which 
Bruen was treated by his aunt and uncle 
was as injurious, in its way, as the se- 
verity of his father. Had he merely 
been spoilt by too much petting from the 
first, he might have outgrown the evil, 
like any other spoiled child, but his char- 
acter had suffered from the combined 
effects of two bad systems. After having 
all that was evil in his nature developed 
and exaggerated by ill-usage, he was then 
humored and confirmed in his faults by 
the injudicious tenderness of the old 
people. Whenever his conduct became 
very outrageous and unreasonable, Mrs. 
Bruen would say to her husband, — 

“ I declare, Mr. Bruen, you ought to 
make that boy mind. You’ll ruin him, 
allowing him always to do as he pleases.” 
And Mr. Bruen would reply, — 

“Why, yes, of course, God bless my 
soul, Margaret, the boy must be made to 
behave himself ; he wants a good thrash- 
ing, by G — ! — may the Lord forgive me 
for saying it! — and you ought to make 
him obey you. I’ll whip him myself if 
he does so again.” 

There was a tradition in the neighbor- 
hood that Mr. Bruen had twice in his 
life actually been wrought up to the 
point of applying the great moral remedy 
to Bruen with his own hand, but as he 
had used on one occasion a pine straw, 
and on the other a sprig of mint, as the 
instrument of correction, his exercise of 
discipline did not prove more effective 
than his wife’s, which consisted in placing 
the boy on one side of her wardrobe door 
and industriously flogging the other. 

The cause of these unusual outbreaks 
on the old gentleman’s part was Bruen’ s 
Rebellion against some of his sanitary 
measures. His passion for coddling and 
physicking, and quackery in general, kept 
him forever trying to regulate the diet 
and prescribe regimens for all who came 
about him. No matter how hearty you 
were, he was sure to press upon you his 


80 


A FAMILY SECRET, 


latest pet system of dietary, — generally 
some dish to which he had himself taken 
a fancy, and which he therefore recom- 
mended as particularly wholesome. Or, 
perhaps, he would take up with some 
system of gymnastics, or water-cure, or 
rubbing, and, not content with riding the 
hobby himself, would insist on getting 
everybody else astride it with him. 
Young Bruen’s bodily infirmities made 
him a tempting subject for experiment, 
and so long as the prescriptions were con- 
fined to recommending palatable dishes, 
or objecting to too close attendance at 
school, Bruen was obedient enough; but 
one winter, when the boy was about nine 
years old, his uncle suddenly became im- 
pressed with the efficacy of air-baths for 
the prevention and healing of all the ills 
that flesh is heir to. As the air-bath 
prescribed by Mr. Bruen consisted in get- 
ting out of bed just at daybreak, and 
running round the house three or four 
times in your night-clothes, and as the 
winter happened to be an unusually 
severe one, the unlucky patient naturally 
demurred to the prescription. It was. his 
obstinate refusal to comply with this 
regimen that brought upon Bruen, on 
two successive mornings, the awful casti- 
gations mentioned above. In vain did 
the old gentleman storm and scold and 
lecture, through the entire season, upon 
the efficacy of air-baths, he never could 
induce a single individual to join him in 
testing their merits ; and as he modified 
the prescription in his own case to caper- 
ing half an hour every morning in a 
single garment before his bedroom fire, 
it is greatly to be feared that the virtues 
of the air-bath will never be practically 
revealed to mankind. 

Such having been the course of Bruen 
Harfleur’s early training, it is no marvel 
that he grew up a perfect little savage, 
whom compassion itself could hardly 
tolerate. He was a being of two natures, 
and only the evil as yet had shown itself, 
but the good was there all the same, — 
silent and torpid, but ready to wake at 
the touch of affection. Buth somehow 
had found the right string, and the boy’s 
better nature awoke responsive to her 
touch. 

While the brother and sister were talking 
they had gradually approached the mouth 
of the leafy cavern where they had met, and 
Buth, gently brushing aside the drooping 
boughs that almost closed the entrance, 
led her bro-ther out into the lingering 
twilight of the garden. But the boy 
suddenly recoiled and slunk back behind 


the sheltering vines, while Buth felt her- 
self seized Avith a strange, uncomfortable 
sensation, AAdien on raising her eyes she 
met her father’s fixed full upon her. He 
was about to turn and leave her Avithout 
speaking, Avhen his glance happened to 
fall upon the hand Avhich she still kept 
raised, mechanically holding back the 
foliage, in the attitude in Avhich he had 
first beheld her. The gem upon her 
finger glittered like a star in the twilight, 
and its rays seemed to strike him with 
the influence of some baleful planet. The 
cold, iron look suddenly changed to a livid 
stare, and he seemed for a moment to have 
lost the power of speech and motion ; 
then, recovering both by a sudden effort, 
he seized her hand in a grip like an iron 
Auce, and gasped out the AAwds, — 

‘‘Who — Avhen — hoAV did you get it?” 

Buth, alarmed at his manner, and op- 
pressed by an uncomfortable sense of 
meriting his displeasure by the one act 
of disobedience in Avhich she had set 
aside the paternal authority, gave a very 
confused and incoherent account of her 
personation of Sonata and the circum- 
stances under which the ring had come 
to her. He listened with breathless at- 
tention, his eyes riveted upon her like 
two points of living steel that threatened 
to pierce her very soul. All that the 
strange man in the church-yard had said 
about the ring came rushing back to her 
mind, and filling it with Amgue conjectures 
as to the cause of her father’s agitation, 
which she could not attribute Avholly to 
mere dislike of the stage and anger at 
the step she had taken. She greAv more 
and more embarrassed under his gaze, 
and finally broke doAvn altogether, and 
turned aAAmy her face, unable to bear 
longer the cold, steely glitter of those 
merciless eyes, that seemed to be probing 
her inmost soul for something more than 
her Avords revealed, — something more than 
she knew or could tell. 

Mr. ITarfleur did not utter a word, but 
kept his eyes fastened on her for some 
moments Avith a look of scornful incre- 
dulity; then, releasing her hand, he 
turned abruptly aAvay. He avoided the 
merry crowd on the front piazza, and, 
directing his steps towards the back part 
of the garden, entered a retired walk, 
screened on one side by a tall picket-fence 
and on the other by a hedge of Cape 
jessamines. Here, shut in from vieAV on 
all sides, he. paced slowly to and fro in 
the deepening tAvilight, a prey to some 
terrible emotion. The iron look of the 
cold, handsome features gradually relaxed 


A MINISTER OF THE GOSPEL. 


81 


into an expression of intense agony, the 
proud head drooped forward as if weighed 
down by some overpowering care, and 
the hands that he held clasped behind 
him were locked together in a grip so 
tight that the blood settled in purple spots 
about the nails. 

lie had not taken many turns, when he 
suddenly halted with a gesture of impa- 
tience, as a side gate at the end of the 
alley opened, and the figure of a man 
advanced towards him. The intruder 
was an intensely clerical-looking indi- 
vidual, of the pale invalid type that is so 
interesting to sentimental maiden ladies 
and middle-aged widows ; but in spite of 
his exemplary, ministerial air, there was 
a sneaky look about the pale blue eyes that 
made you suspicious. Mr. Harfleur’s brow 
contracted as the young man approached, 
but his voice was bland and cordial. 

You here, Mr. Tadpole !” he ex- 
claimed, in the tone of one who has re- 
ceived a pleasant surprise. “Where have 
you been all day? We missed you at 
dinner,” 

“ I went home with the Widow War- 
ren’s son, after dismissing my school,” 
said Mr. Tadpole, with a strong New 
England accent. ‘‘ She’s a truly pious 
woman, Mr. Harfleur, though she is poor; 
and it behooves a minister of the gospel, 
you know, not to despise the meek and 
lowly.” And Mr. Tadpole looked very 
pious, and coughed a little pathetic 
cough, — it greatly behooves a minister 
of the gospel not to be too robust. 

“ I’m afraid it’s too damp for you out 
here, my dear ^neas,” said Mr. Ilar- 
fleur, taking immediate advantage of the 
cough. “ You had better go in, or you’ll 
catch cold.” 

“ Thank you, I guess there^s no danger 
if I wrap up well,” replied the other, 
drawing a crocheted woolen comforter, 
the gift of some pious marriageable sister 
in Israel, close around his neck, and 
adjusting it very carefully so as not to 
damage the fresh paper collar he had put 
on that morning ; then, after an awkward 
silence, he resumed, — 

“ I have long desired a fitting occasion, 
Mr. Harfleur, for discoursing wfith you 
upon a subject that, a — a — ahem, lies very 
near my a — heart, and upon which all my 
hopes of such temporal happiness as a 
minister of the gospel may lawfully desire 
depend.” 

Mr. Harfleur’s brow darkened, but his 
voice was soft and bland as he replied,— 

“Well, iEneas, what is it about, and 
how can I assist you?” 


“ It is about Miss, a — a — ahem — Miss, 
Miss — your daughter.” 

“ Well ; and what about her?” said Mr. 
Harfleur, sardonically. 

“ Why, I am afraid, — that is, I do not 
think, — at least, I fear,” continued Mr. 
Tadpole, casting about in vain for a form 
of words that would cover his embarrass- 
ment, “ that she is not inclined to look as 
favorably upon me as I had a right to 
expect.’^ 

Mr. Harfleur darted at the speaker a 
furtive glance that would have struck 
him to the earth, if looks could kill, but 
he replied in a calm, mild voice, — 

“Well, I hardly see how I can help 
you in that matter, Mr. Tadpole. Young 
ladies will be capricious and unreasonable 
in their fancies sometimes, and you must 
have patience ; you know it is not in my 
power to make her fancy you 5 that must 
be your own work.” 

“ But the p'arental influence ” be- 

gan ^neas, unconscious of the scornful 
irony lurking in the other’s words. 

“ Has done all it can in this case,” 
said Mr. Harfleur, interrupting him with 
ill-disguised impatience 5 “ and the day 
for shutting girls up in old castles and 
forcing them to marry against their will 
has passed away.” 

“But the moral influence,” persisted 
.ZEneas, prudently edging off a little, 
“ such as the deceased Mr. Randolph 
Bruen, for instance, may have exerted 
upon his daughter.” And there was a 
sinister leer in the sneaky little eyes as 
they glanced furtively at the face of 
iEneas’s companion. 

Mr. Harfleur wrenched a sprig from an 
overhanging jessamine-bough, and wrung 
the unoffending plant with as good a will 
as if it had been .^neas Tadpole’s neck ; 
then, strewing the leaves upon the ground, 
he continued, placidly, — 

“ I cannot see that I have given you 
any just cause of complaint, Mr. Tad- 
pole, or that any influence I could have 
exerted in your iDehalf has been left un- 
tried. I have received you into my 
family, where you enjoy constant inter- 
course with my daughter, and have as- 
sured you of my consent to your marriage 
whenever you win hers. If you are too 
modest to make her sensible of your 
merits, is that any fault of mine?” 

“ It does not become a minister of the 
gospel to dwell upon his own merits,” 
said ^neas, totally obtuse to Mr. Har- 
fleur’s lurking sarcasm, “and the thought- 
less and worldly-minded are ever prone to 
overlook them for more showy and en- 


82 


A FAMILY SFCEFT. 


ticing qualities. Your daughter is con- 
tinually surrounded with a set of shallow 
men of the world, who think lightly of 
the dignity of the sacred office, and 
your ” 

“ If my daughter has been wanting in 
the respect due to your office,” interrupted 
Mr. Ilarfleur, glad to shift the ground of 
^neas^s complaint, “ I shall reprimand 
her severely.” 

It’s a — a It’s not that, exactly,” 

stammered iEneas, hesitating, and in- 
stincti^1ely edging away from his com- 
panion, “ but I thought, — that is, ahem — 
I supposed— ahem — I think I may venture 
to suggest that you might, a — ahem, hint 
to her of the a — a — the obligations you 
a — owe to my family about a certain 
matter, in such a manner as would — 
ahem, decide her to look more favorably 
upon me.” 

Mr. Ilarfleur’s countenance grew blacker 
than the sky above him, and his pent-up 
feelings burst out in words in spite of 
himself. 

“Obligations!” he cried, in a quivering 
voice. “Have you come here to black- 
mail me that you dare to talk to me of 
obligations, when the child I committed 
to your father’s charge is at this moment 
under my roof, calling up ghosts of what 
it were well for both you and me should 
be buried forever? You talk to me of 
obligations, when I have just looked into 
her face and seen her mother’s features 
blazoned there, and on her finger the very 
nng ” 

He suddenly checked himself, and ar- 
rested midway the clinched hand he had 
raised, with a menacing gesture, over 
j3i]neas’s head. Ilis soul seemed chained 
in secret bondage under the feet of this 
hated being, whose odious pretensions 
he dared not disallow even when thej 
touched the idol of his heart, — the beauti- 
ful daughter, his love for whom was the 
one tender spot in his iron nature. He 
stood for a moment irresolute, like a man 
who feels that he has gone too far but 
does not know how to retrace his steps ; 
then, with a desperate efibrt, biting his 
lips till the blood came through and 
stained his teeth, he forced himself to lick 
the dust under j^lneas Tadpole’s feet. 

“ I am afraid I have been hasty, my 
dear Tadpole,” he began, extending his 
hand with an air of assumed frankness, 

but I beg you will overlook it. I have 
been sorely tried by what has happened 
to-day, as you may well imagine, and 
was not quite myself just now. I am 
sorry to have made the son of my old 


friend the victim of an ill humor of which 
he was not the proper object*, but anger, 
you know, is always blind.” 

-^Eneas had appeared staggered at first 
by Mr. Ilarfleur’ s sudden outburst, but 
as the violence of the latter subsided he 
gradually recovered himself, and a look 
of secret exultation gleamed in the small, 
weak-looking blue eyes as he came for- 
ward and placed his thin, moist fingers in 
Mr. Harfleur’s soft but icy palm. 

“ It does not become a minister of the 
gospel,” he said, piously, “to remember 
injuries, and I freely forgive any that 
you have done unto one of the humblest 
soldiers in the army of the Lord,' for our 
weapons are not of this world. But in 
justice to my honored parent I must beg 
you to remember that it was youtself 
who removed from my father’s hands the 
charge you had committed to them : it 
was you who, caring for the health of the 
body rather than the welfare of the soul, 
moved her from my father’s roof to con- 
vey her to a more— ahem — salubrious 
climate.” 

There was a sinister irony in Eneas’s 
last words that made Mr. Ilarfleur wince 
under them. 

“Yes, yes, I have been unreasonable; 
a man in a passion always is,” he an- 
swered, hastily, as if anxious to dismiss 
the subject; “but I know your ingenuous 
nature will overlook that. I will speak 
to Claude about you the first opportunity ; 
the house is too full of company now to 
do anything, but as soon as we quiet 
down a little I’ll have a private talk with 
her. In the mean time we had better go 
in ; the night air is damp, and your lungs 
are weak: we must be careful.” 

“You were always very considerate of 
the health of those for whom you have a 
particular regard,” muttered our exem- 
plary young minister of the gospel, as he 
followed Mr. Ilarfleur into the house. 


CHAPTER XIX. 

RUTH MAKES A FRIEND. 

Mr. Tadpole did not follow his host 
into the drawing-room, where the com- 
pany had assembled, by this time, for the 
evening, but retired first to his own apart- 
ment, in order to rearrange his toilet ; a 
business which he managed with com- 


RVTH MAKES A FRIEND. 


83 


mendable economy, by turning his patent 
reversible perspiration-proof paper collar 
inside out, and carefully pinning his fault- 
less' clerical tie so as to conceal a slight 
fracture in his patent reversible paper 
shirt-front. He seemed to regard him- 
self with peculiar complacency this even- 
ing, and adjusted with unusual care the 
thin lock that he had trained to fall over 
his tall, narrow forehead with a sweet 
curling grace, absolutely bewitching to 
the pious females of his flock. There was 
a complacent smile on the thin lips, and 
a gleam of secret triumph in the pale 
blue eyes, as though some idea long latent 
in his brain had suddenly developed into 
definite and alluring shape. “ If she has 
fulfilled the promise of her youth, she 
must be even more beautiful than her 
sister,” he said to himself, turning from 
the glass and beginning to pare his long 
thin nails *, “ and then, there would be 
no division of the property,” — his eyes 
began to gleam like a snake’s, — “ while 
Julian Harfleur’s two children — yes, yes, 
if my father could manage it without 
compromising himself — and then grati- 
tude ought to induce her ” he ended 

with a low laugh, and giving a final touch 
to the cherished tress over his temple, 
sallied forth, prepared for conquest. 

After that strange interview with her 
father, the garden seemed to Ruth peopled 
with terrible shapes, and she fled to the 
friendly solitude of her own room, where 
she would have remained the rest of the 
evening but for the kindly solicitude of 
her aunt, who, missing her from the 
drawing-room, came to seek her and in- 
sist that she should go down-stairs and 
enjoy herself with the rest of the young 
people. Ruth could not explain why 
society possessed no attractions for her 
just then, and prepared reluctantly to 
obey. She lingered as long as possible 
over her toilet, from a desire to put ofi* 
descending to the drawing-room, and not 
that she was sensible at that moment to 
the pleasure women find in standing be- 
fore the glass to worry their hair and pin 
on bows. At last, when there was no 
longer any pretext for delay, she de- 
scended the stairs, and arrived at the 
drawing-room door simultaneously with 
Mr. ^neas Tadpole. He recognized her 
at once, his memory being assisted by 
her striking resemblance to the portraits 
he had seen of her mother ; but Ruth, 
from whose thoughts nothing could be 
further removed than any expectation of 
again beholding this interesting com- 
panion of her childhood, was about to 


pass on without noticing him, when she 
was suddenly arrested by the tones of a 
voice that startled her by the odious as- 
sociations they revived. 

“Miss Ruthie,” said the voice, whose 
accents she recognized unmistakably, “I 
guess you hardly remember the playmate 
of your childhood, — ^neas Tadpole, the 
son of your old pastor and instructor; 
but you see I have not forgotten you. 
Miss Ruthie.” 

Ruth’s recollections of the Tadpole 
family were not of a nature to dispose 
her to reciprocate the friendly advances 
of Mr. ^neas, and his manner, stiiT and 
constrained as it was, had a touch of 
familiarity in it that offended her. She 
resented his unwarrantable use of her 
Christian name, and, pretending not to 
see Mr. Tadpole’s proffered hand, she 
answered, with a frigid bow, — 

“ I remember you now, Mr. Tadpole, 
since you have introduced yourself, but 
the meeting was so unlooked for it could 
hardly be expected I should have recog- 
nized you sooner. I had no idea of ever 
seeing you here.” 

In truth, nothing could have exceeded 
Ruth’s surprise at this unexpected ren- 
contre, except her displeasure, both of 
which were visibly depicted on her coun- 
tenance ; but as Mr. Tadpole never looked 
into people’s faces when talking with 
them, this evidence of her regard was 
lost on him. Without lifting his eyes 
from the floor, which he was observing 
diligently, he continued, in reply to her 
last not very cordial remark : 

“Nor would I have expected to be here 
at one time, Miss Ruthie, but a minister 
of the gospel must be prepared to go 
wherever duty calls. Miss Ruthie,” he 
added, after a short pause, raising his 
eyes for an instant to her face, with what 
was meant to be a very bewitching glance, 
— not one of your naughty, rakish, black- 
eyed glances, but a nice, pious, modest 
little side glance, such as an exemplary 
young clergyman who is given to pious 
flirtations with devout females may law- 
fully dispense. “ Must I say, Miss Ruthie ? 
It used to be Ruth and ^neas when we 
were children, — and is not the simplicity 
of childhood very beautiful ?” 

“ Miss Harfleur and Mr. Tadpole are 
no longer children,” replied Ruth, haugh- 
tily ; and, turning abruptly away, she 
passed into the parlor, ^Rneas following 
in her wake. 

Not a word or a gesture of the scene 
transpiring in the hall had escaped Mr. 
Harfleur, who happened to command, from 


84 


A FAMILY SECRET, 


the corner of the sofa, where he was im- 
prisoned behind Mrs. Plato Plantagenet’s 
flounces, a full view of the entrance. Yet 
his attention never once appeared to 
wander from that lady’s edifying dis- 
course, or his interest in it to flag. 

“ Certainly, Mrs. Norgood,” he was 
saying, when Ruth entered the room. 
“ I agree with you that it is highly im- 
portant for those who occupy the first 
rank in society to guard their position 
with peculiar vigilance in times like the 
present, when that position is peculiarly 
liable to be assailed ; and it is ladies of 
family and influence, like yourself, that 
must step to the front.” 

Really, Mr. Harfleur was charming this 
evening, thought Mrs. Norgood; for how 
could she tell that the smile upon his 
features was not a tribute to her own 
powers of fascination, but an involuntary 
betrayal of satisfaction at the rebuff* that 
Ruth had given ^neas? How could any 
one, indeed, have guessed it, who had 
observed the habitual deference with which 
he treated this pattern young minister of 
the gospel ? 

There was something very perplexing 
to all Mr. Harfleur’ s acquaintances in the 
relation that seemed to subsist between 
him and ^neas Tadpole. They could 
not account for the marked consideration 
and attention which a man so haughty 
and fastidious extended to a person of so 
little apparent significance, and with no 
advantages of mind or person to recom- 
mend him. He was the son of a certain 
Reverend Nehemiah Tadpole, who had 
begun life in a pedagogue way at South 
Ambury when Julian Harfleur was a 
young man, and a strange intimacy had 
sprung up between the two, notwithstand- 
ing Ilarfleur’s haughty disposition and 
the glaring disparities that existed be- 
tween them, extending even to personal 
appearance. About the time of Harfleur’s 
marriage, the Reverend Tadpole, who 
seemed to have met with a sudden run of 
luck, returned home, and reversed the 
old adage by becoming a great prophet in 
his own country. He was Mr. Harfleur’s 
senior by a few years, and had brought 
.with him, when he first came to South 
Ambury, a wife and an infant son, named 
Hilneas, the pious hero of our tale. 

Some years previous to Ruth’s unexpected 
return home, AEneasTadpole, lured perhaps 
by his father’s former good fortune, had 
come South, under Mr. Ilarfleur’s auspices, 
to begin life as his worthy parent had 
done before him. He was first employed 
as private tutor to Bruen Harfleur ; but. 


at the request of some of the neighboring 
families, who found it inconvenient to 
send their boys to South Ambury for in- 
struction, he opened a select school at a 
little country meeting-house in the vicin- 
ity, where he also officiated, occasionally, 
on Sundays, as an expounder of the gos- 
pel. Mr. Harfleur was scrupulously exact 
in attending upon Mr. Tadpole’s minis- 
trations with his entire household, a cir- 
cumstance that would naturally of itself 
excite comment, since he was known to 
be a skeptic and contemner of all religion. 

Old George Bruen, on the other hand, 
had conceived an invincible repugnance 
to ^neas from the very first ; and it was 
the more singular that Mr. Harfleur 
should persist in countenancing the young 
man, that he always, in every other mat- 
ter, paid the greatest deference to the 
opinions of the rich old uncle who had it 
in his power to do such great things for 
Claude. 

But, notwithstanding his apparent re- 
gard for the pious JEneas, Mr. Harfleur 
had observed the advances of the latter 
towards Ruth with secret distrust, and her 
cold reception of them seemed to afford 
him unmingled pleasure. If Ruth had 
turned towards her father the moment 
after snubbing iEneas, she would have 
met the only approving glance he ever 
bestowed upon her, and the inward satis- 
faction he felt added unusual warmth to 
the graceful cordiality with which he rose 
to receive Mr. Tadpole, and engage him 
in conversation with Mrs. Norgood and 
himself. 

In the mean time, Geofge Dalton, con- 
trary to his custom, which certainly was 
not to be very assiduous in his attentions 
to the fair sex, emerged from the embra- 
sure of a window, where he had barri- 
caded himself behind his aunt’s arm-chair 
against the attacks of the eldest Miss Nor- 
good, advanced to meet Miss Harfleur, 
and led her away, with evident satisfac- 
tion, to a retired niche between a rose- 
wood 6tagi^re and a rustic flower-stand, 
where two vacant chairs -were placed in 
most inviting proximity for a teie-a-tete, 

“ My word for it there has been a royal 
flirtation going on here at no very distant 
period,” said George, as he seated himself 
with an air of contentment on the chair 
which he found placed in lover-like con- 
tiguity to the one on which he had just dis- 
posed his companion ; “ but you needn’t 
be edging off* so,” he added, laughing ; 
“ the place is not infectious on that ac- 
count, and I am not going to make love 
to you.” 


RUTH MAKES A FRIEND. 


85 


Ruth laughed, and allowed her chair to 
remain where it was, though near enough 
for her to detect the odor of brandy that 
still tainted George’s breath. 

“ I am afraid,” continued George, still 
in his bantering tone, “that you don’t 
appreciate old acquaintance as you ought. 
You snubbed me most cruelly the other 
morning at my uncle’s breakfast-table, 
and, judging from your manner just now, 
I should say you were not inclined to 
be more accessible to the fascinations of 
our clerical friend over yonder,” glancing 
at JEneas, “ though I believe you were 
once a pupil of his reverend father, and 
must have known him when a child.” 

“Yes, I am sorry to say I did know 
him,” answered Ruth, casting a look of 
intense disgust at .^Eneas*, “and, unless 
appearances are very deceptive, I should 
say that his manhood has quite fulfilled 
the promise of his youth.” 

“ Then it is plain you did not regard 
the promise of his youth as very flatter- 
ing,” replied George, who shared his 
uncle’s opinion with regard to the pious 
jEneas. 

“ No, I did not,” said Ruth. “We were 
always at war, and I used to spend half 
my Saturdays in durance vile, as a pun- 
ishment for having pulled .dEneas’s hair 
or scratched his face.” 

“ But, at any rate, you had the satisfac- 
tion of having given him the pull and the 
scratch,” said George, looking as if he 
would not mind practicing some such little 
amenities on his own account ; “ and that 
must have been a consoling reflection.” 

Their conversation was interrupted at 
this point by a little strategic move on the 
part of Mrs. Plato Plantagenet, who, see- 
ing that Claude had monopolized the at- 
tentions of Malvern, and thinking it but 
fair that her daughter should have a 
chance at the aristocratic stranger, had 
taken the first opportunity that offered 
to remind “ dear Claude” that she had 
promised to give her friends some music. 
Claude, after first politely exacting thecon- 
ditiom that the Miss Norgoods also would 
favor the company, seated herself at the 
piano, and rattled off with marvelous 
ease a long and intricate fantasia of Gott- 
schalk’s. After Claude, the eldest Miss 
Norgood, with a tolerable voice for ballad 
music, undertook some operatic morceaux 
of so ambitious a style that Ruth herself 
would have hesitated to attempt them ; 
and then Miss Estremadura Ida Norgood, 
with no voice at all, followed in a tedious 
round of those ephemeral popular songs 
that all sound like variations of one an- 


other, and, in virtue of her character as 
the naughty, giddy thing of the family, 
she added a few comic ballads, with the 
necessary ogling and winking at the men 
to make them effective. The company 
behaved as people usually do on such oc- 
casions, — that is, nobody listened to the 
music, and everybody went into raptures 
over it, each performer, as she rose from 
her seat, being greeted with a lot of con- 
ventional compliments from people no 
one of whom could tell whether she had 
been playing Yankee Doodle or the Dead 
March from Saul. 

Ruth’s musical training was too com- 
plete to permit her to talk while any kind 
of performance was going on, and George 
was too well bred not to understand the 
listening attitude she assumed as Claude 
seated herself at the piano ; but he could 
not repress a gesture of impatience as 
the first note broke in upon their conver- 
sation, and he laid himself back in his 
easy-chair with a look of suffering en- 
durance so absurd, that Ruth could hardly 
keep from laughing out. When at last 
the “ giddy thing” had finished her thir- 
teenth ballad, and was complacently re- 
ceiving the compliments of people who 
had not heard a word of it, George raised 
his eyes with a look of inexpressible re- 
lief to his companion. 

“ You don’t seem fond of music. Major 
Dalton,” said Ruth, with a smile. 

“Yes, I am very fond of music,'' he 
replied, with emphasis on the word, “ but 
I can’t mistake a sparrow for a mocking- 
bird.” 

“ But you ought not to quarrel with 
the sparrow for not being a mocking- 
bird,” she replied. 

/“Well, I don’t,” lie answered. “If 
Miss Norgood would never attempt any- 
thing above ^ Roy’s Wife,’ or ^ Old Folks 
at Home,’ I could listen to her with 
patience, — even wflth pleasure. But 
Claude ought never to touch the piano 
on any account ; she has not a spark of 
genuine music in her, nor does she value 
it one straw, except as a graceful and 
elegant accomplishment. Her music is 
all in her fingers, and as cold and soulless 
as the gems upon them. It puts me out 
of patience to hear her, for you know that 
mere sleight of hand cannot make music, 
nor is vanity a legitimate source of in- 
spiration.” 

Ruth regarded him with surprise. This 
was precisely the impression Claude’s 
playing had made upon her, and she was 
startled to find lurking under George’s 
appearance of utter indifference so true 


86 


A FAMILY SECRET. 


and correct an appreciation of the art 
that was the joy and delight of her life. 
She had too much good taste, however, 
to utter any criticism adverse to another 
woman, and she was Ibrtunately saved 
the necessity of making a reply by Claude 
herself, Tvho, at a hint from Malvern, now 
approached her sister, towards whom his 
eyes had frequently wandered during the 
progress of Claude’s fantasia and Miss 
Norgood’s songs. No one in the room ex- 
cept himself was aware of her rare talents, 
which she had not been invited to display. 

“ I am sorry,” began Claude, laying her 
hand on the back of George’s chair, ‘4o 
interrupt a tete-d-tete that seems so satis- 
factory to both parties, but you must lay 
the blame on Colonel Malvern, who has 
commissioned me to get my sister to sing. 
Of course you won’t refuse, Ruth? lie’s 
very anxious to hear you, but couldn’t 
get away from old Mrs. Norgood,” in a 
cautious whisper, “ to ask you himself ; 
come.” 

“ Don’t go,’’ said George, before Ruth 
could answer a word, and he put out his 
hand as if to detain her. 

‘‘Never mind George,” said Claude, 
“ he is selfish enough to want to keep you 
here all the evening, talking to him.” 

“ That is paying me rather an equivocal 
compliment; it is as much as to say that 
Major Dalton doesn’t want to hear me 
sing.” 

“ I don’t, — not now,” said George, with 
something, though, in his manner that 
quite relieved the words of their seeming 
rudeness. 

“ George, you have no more apprecia- 
tion of music than a stone,” said Claude, 
pouting. 

Ruth looked at him with a quiet smile. 

“ You will not do me such injustice as 
to believe that, I know,” he said, return- 
ing her smile. 

“Whatever I believe,” said Ruth, her 
face lighting with a delicious sense of 
coming triumph, “ it is evident that you 
think I am less of a bore here than I 
would be at the piano.” 

“ No,” said George, “ I know that your 
music is above all criticism, or I would 
never have ventured an objection to your 
singing under any circumstances. Mal- 
vern has been raving to me about your 
voice, and he is a man of even more fas- 
tidious taste in such matters than my- 
self; but for all that, please don’t sing; 
not now.” 

“ Don’t listen to that barbarian. Miss 
Ilarfleur,” said a voice close to her ear, 
and, raising her eyes, Ruth saw Audley 


Malvern's handsome face bending over 
her. “ You surely will not deprive all 
this honorable company of the pleasure 
of hearing you sing just to gratify the 
whim of a selfish dog who wants to keep 
you all to himself. Come, George,” he 
continued, as he placed Ruth’s unresist- 
ing hand on his arm and led her towards 
the piano, “pocket your absurdity for 
once, and come and enjoy Miss Ilar- 
fleur’s music like a sensible man.” 

George rose and followed them, with a 
discontented look. lie stationed himself 
at one end of the piano, with his hands 
stuck moodily in his pockets and his 
eyes fixed upon the singer. Ruth took 
her seat quietly and without ostentation, 
but could not forbear one little glance of 
anticipated triumph towards George, as 
she thought how soon she would compel 
homage even from him. She did not 
choose any difficult masterpiece to show 
off her voice, but struck a few simple 
chords, and then, without once clearing 
her throat or declaring that she had a 
cold, began that sweet, sad song, “Rock 
me to Sleep.” 

The strain was neither new nor rare, 
but the voice of the singer was both. 
The exquisite expression that the over- 
flowing heart of the motherless exile 
threw into her song, even more than 
her wonderful voice, entranced every 
hearer. The subdued hum of conver- 
sation, which is all that society usually 
concedes to art when they meet in a 
drawing-room, suddenly hushed to a 
dead silence as the first accents of Miss 
ITarfleur’s bird-like notes floated through 
the room. Even Mr. Harfleur’s face 
grew softer, and good Aunt Bruen stealth- 
ily wiped away a tear. 

When she rose from the piano, a con- 
fused murmur of applause ran through 
the room ; but before any one could ad- 
dress a word to the singer, and before 
she herself well knew what he was 
about, George had taken her on his arm, 
and led her from the room. 

“ You have given me. Miss Ilarfleur, 
against my will, one of the greatest 
pleasures I ever had in my life,” he said, 
as he led her through the hall out on the 
moonlit piazza, “ and I am going to re- 
pay the debt by saving you from the 
platitudes those people in yonder are all 
ready to let fly at you.” 

Ruth regarded him with a half-amused, 
half-puzzled expression. “ May I ask,” 
she said, “ since you admit that my 
music pleased you, why you did not 
wish to hear me sing?” 


RUTH MAKES A FRIEND. 


87 


“ Precisely because I knew it would 
please me,” he answered ; “ and when I 
listen to music, — I mean the genuine 
thing, not the stuff that passes current 
for it in society, — I want to give up my 
whole soul to the enjoyment of it. I 
did not wish to hear you sing for the first 
time in a crowd, where I would be con- 
demned to witness Mrs. Norgood’s par- 
oxysms of admiration, and where I would 
be set down as little better than a canni- 
bal if I didn’t wake from my trance of 
enjoyment at the end of every strain to 
make a pretty speech and assure you of 
my appreciation. I preferred waiting 
until there were no profane listeners, at 
hand to desecrate the charm of your 
music with unmeaning applause. I was 
afraid to trust myself, lest I should look 
savage every time Miss Norgood ex- 
claimed ‘ How beautiful !’ in the wrong 
place, or fiy at old Plato Plantagenet’s 
throat when he began to tell, as he al- 
ways does, about the time when his step- 
brother’s wife’s cousin’s sister-in-law, 
Mrs. Major-General Swashbluster, was 
taken for Piccolomini.” 

Ruth laughed. “ I understand you,” 
she said, ‘‘ and I heartily thank you for 
your thorough appreciation of the art 
that has been almost my only pleasure 
in life; but,” she continued, pausing as 
they reached the farther end of the piazza 
and resting one hand on the railing, 
“don’t you think you are a little too 
exacting upon the appreciativeness of 
others ? According to your notions, one 
could not enjoy the opera on account of 
the people who go there to show them- 
selves rather than listen to the music,” 

“Not at all,” said George; “if they 
will only hold their tongues while the 
music is going on and let those listen 
who will. But in a private parlor you 
have to be polite to every officious con- 
noisseur who interrupts 3^ou in the midst 
of a strain to tell you how divine it is, 
and must listen with patience at the end 
of every piece to the stereotyped ap- 
plauses of people who don’t know Mozart 
from Offenbach. Half the people in so- 
ciety have no more real love of music 
than my walking-stick, but they talk it 
up and fly into raptures over it because 
they’ ve got a notion that that is the genteel 
thing to do. They will talk to you through- 
out the most recherchi performance about 
their personal ailments and adventures, 
as if you were more interested in the 
state of their nerves, or the history of 
their last flirtation, than in the music, 
and then expect you to think them lovers 


of art because they exclaim ^ Very fine’ at 
the end of a piece, not one note of which 
they have heard. In public places of 
amusement such people are compelled by 
public opinion to hold their tongues 
during a performance, and they cannot 
become aggressive ; but until the man- 
ners of our best society improve in this 
respect I shall never desire to hear even 
you sing, Miss Harfleur, in a crowded 
drawing-room. But I must stop grum- 
bling,” he added, looking into her face 
with a pleasant smile, “or you will take 
me for a growling, discontented cynic, 
and I confess I would be very sorry for 
your first impression of me to be a 
disagreeable one.” 

There was an honest straightforward- 
ness about George Dalton that was con- 
tagious with ingenuous natures like his 
own. Ruth liked him, and could not help 
telling him so. 

“ It would-be worse than ungrateful in 
me to call you disagreeable,” she said, 
“ since you are the only gentleman in the 
house who has taken (tny notice of me ; 
and as for your grumbling,” she added, 
with a laugh, “ it is not of a kind to 
make me afraid, for I know that you are 
not ill-natured.” 

“ Thank you for saying so,” replied 
George ; “ I was afraid I had been a little 
ill-natured ; indeed, I have not felt in a 
pleasant mood since — since I heard some- 
thing the other night that has put me 
out of sorts with all the world, and almost 
made me lose my faith in human nature.” 

He broke a spray from the yellow jessa- 
mine-vine that clustered over their heads 
and crushed it nervously in his hand. 

“ But I am glad,” he went on, stifling 
the bitter words that the thought of Julia 
Malvern’s treachery had almost brought 
to his lips, “ that you are not disposed to 
be hard on me, for I like you. Miss Har- 
fleur, and want you to be my friend if 
you will.” 

“ Friendship has not been lavished 
upon me so freely. Major Dalton, that I 
can afford to reject it when so frankly 
offered,” said Ruth, placing her hand in 
the broad, generous palm that George ex- 
tended to her. 

“ Major Dalton,” said George, repeat- 
ing the words slowly, while he still 
retained the hand Ruth had placed in 
his, — “Major Dalton, Miss Harfleur, — 
can’t we manage to get rid of those for- 
midable titles ? They act like a refrigera- 
tor upon friendly intercourse. We are 
half-cousins anyhow, you know ; that is,” 
he added, feeling that the vulgarity of 


88 


A FAMILY SECRET, 


claiming kin on short notice does not 
apply in cases where the originator of the 
claim occupies the position of advantage, 

the connection between our families is 
such as to warrant us in claiming kin if 
we like each other well enough. Claude 
and I are on such terms of cousinship as 
to quarrel with one another whenever we 
feel disposed. Why can’t you and I, who 
mean to he such good friends, make use 
of the family connection to get rid of 
ceremony and be plain Ruth and George 
to each other? Do you like me well 
enough to call me George?” 

“ Yes, I do, George,” she answered, 
returning his cordial smile with a look 
of hearty good will. 

Can you tell me, 0 sage reader, why 
it was that the very same thing which 
had seemed to Ruth an unwarrantable 
liberty, an insult almost, when suggested 
by the pious ^neas Tadpole, should 
seem the most natural and agreeable 
thing in the world Avhen proposed by the 
profligate George Dalton ? 


CHAPTER XX. 

iENEAS FALLS INTO THE HANDS OF THE 
PHILISTINES. 

The day of the tournament was to 
South Ambury what Derby day is to 
London, or Mardi Gras to New Orleans. 
There was not a young woman for twenty 
miles around whose brain had not been 
filled for weeks past with visions of gal- 
lant knights and prancing steeds, with a 
floral crown in the distance, adorning 
perchance her own fair brow *, and light 
feet had pattered in their sleep for many 
a night to the phantom music that floated 
through dreams of the coming tourna- 
ment ball. 

The scene of the mimic contest was a 
place called Sandy Circle, about three 
miles from South Ambury ; and towards 
this point the entire population of the 
district for miles around were wending 
their way on the morning of the tourna- 
ment. Troops of happy negroes enlivened 
every highway and by-way with their 
holiday faces and bright bandanas, while 
the gentry of the neighborhood, decked 
in their best, rolled grandly along in their 
cumbersome family coaches, or cantered 
lightly by on their graceful thorough-bred 
steeds. 


The young people at the White House 
had all decided to ride over to the Circle 
on horseback. The distance was twelve 
miles, — -just a pleasant morning’s ride ; — 
and after the tournament they were all to 
proceed to South Ambury, where the two 
Miss Harfleurs, with Major Dalton and 
Colonel Malvern, were to remain as the 
guests of Mrs. Stockdale, and attend the 
tournament ball. 

Ruth had never learned to ride, and it 
was with a feeling of secret chagrin that 
she made her appearance on the morning 
of the tournament in an ordinary car- 
riage-dress, while all the other ladies, ex- 
cept her aunt and Mrs. Norgood, were 
equipped for riding. She regretted this 
defect of her city education the more, as 
it seemed likely to entail upon her the 
companionship of Mr. jEneas Tadpole, 
he being the only gentleman of the party 
who was not addicted to equestrian pur- 
suits, and he had shown a determined 
disposition to thrust himself upon her in 
spite of her studied coldness. She could 
not cut him outright, or resort to open 
rudeness, so long as he was a guest in her 
father’s house, and nothing short of a 
positive affront seemed likely to affect 
him. Mr. ^neas Tadpole was one of 
those men who never perceive a slight, 
unless it suits their purpose, and it ap- 
parently did not suit his purpose to take 
offense at Ruth. From their very first 
meeting she had taken no pains to con- 
ceal her dislike, and had clearly indicated 
her desire to avoid him, but Mr. Tadpole 
perseveringly refused to be avoided. He 
was constantly skulking at her side when- 
ever there was an opportunity of forcing 
himself upon her, and on the morning 
of thb tournament he observed her car- 
riage-dress with a look of intense satis- 
faction, and hung about her with the 
evident intention of ensconcing himself 
in the same vehicle. George Dalton had 
ridden over to Sandowne the evening be- 
fore, promising to return early in the 
morning, or to join the rest of the party 
somewhere along the road. As he had 
not yet made his appearance, and the 
other gentlemen were all booted and 
spurred for riding, Mr. Tadpole made no 
doubt that he could accomplish his object 
without a rival. He did not directly ask 
permission to act as Ruth’s escort, which 
might have given her an opportunity to 
put him off on some pretext or other, but 
officiously took upon himself to act in 
that capacity with an air of taking the 
matter for granted, which left Ruth no 
resource short of a downright snubbing, 


^NEAS FALLS INTO THE HANDS OF THE PHILISTINES, 89 


wliich one is loth to administer even in 
the most flagrant and aggravated cases 
of pushing. 

There was another person to whom 
these demonstrations of Mr. Tadpole 
were as unwelcome as to Ruth herself, 
and that person was Julian Harfleur. 
Whenever Mr. Tadpole approached Ruth 
Mr. Harfleur always happened, somehow 
or other, to he very near at hand, so near 
that it would have been impossible for 
him, whatever scruples he may have 
entertained on the subject, not to over- 
hear everything that passed between 
them. If Mr. Harfleur had been a 
manoeuvring mamma, bent upon entang- 
ling that model young man into some 
carefully-laid matrimonial snare, he could 
not have kept a more jealous eye upon 
him ; nay, the glance of jealousy itself 
could not have been half so vigilant and 
penetrating as the dark eye of suspicion 
which Julian Harfleur kept fixed upon 
the son of his friend. 

Mr. Harfleur had never volunteered a 
word to Ruth since their interview in the 
garden, and she was therefore greatly 
surprised when he approached her, as 
she was leaving the breakfast-room on 
the morning of the tournament, and in- 
quired, in a pleasant voice, why she was 
not dressed for riding, like the other 
ladies. 

Ruth was obliged, to her great mortifi- 
cation, to acknowledge that she had never 
been on horseback in her life. 

“ That is a pity,” said her father, for 
once in his life speaking sincerely ; “ but 
you will soon learn, here in the country. 
And you, my dear Tadpole,” turning to 
u®neas,. who was following close behind, 
“ what do you propose doing?” 

“I guess I sha’n’t ride to-day,” said 
^Tineas, shuddering at the very idea, for 
he had delicate nerves, as became a nice 
young clergyman fond of being petted by 
maiden ladies and middle-aged widows. 
“ The duties of a minister of the gospel 
being of a moral and intellectual nature, 
do not tend, you know, to proficiency 
in mere physical accomplishments; and 
those of our class who devote themselves 
conscientiously to the duties of their 
sacred calling have neither time nor in- 
clination for grosser athletic pursuits.” 

“ Still, you do not consider such pur- 
suits essentially wrong, I hope,” said Mr. 
Harfleur, with an air of the greatest def- 
erence, “ nor really consider, as I once 
heard you maintain in an argument with 
Claude, that tournaments are so nearly 
allied to circuses and horse-races, and 


other abominations of Satan, as to be 
included in the same category? Because, 
if you really are doubtful of the moral- 
ity of the tournament, of course you would 
not like to give it the sanction of your 
presence, and it would be a very great 
disappointment to all of us not to have 
you of our party to-day.” 

^neas did not perceive the sarcastic 
smile that lurked under Mr. Harfleur’ s 
iron-gray moustache, as he called to mind, 
so inopportunely, the moral sentiments 
that had been advanced to suit a very dif- 
ferent occasion. The pious ^neas looked 
uncomfortable, cleared his throat, coughed 
a little dry cough behind his hand, and 
then began, — 

‘‘It is true, I cannot approve of such 
entertainments from a moral point of 
view, nor do I think a minister of the 
gospel would be justified in seeking 
amusement at them ; but I am not going 
for my own pleasure. I am told that per- 
sons are often severely, sometimes fatally, 
hurt in these vicious sports, and it is the 
duty of a minister of the gospel never to 
shrink from danger, — eh. Miss Harfleur ? 
AYe should always be at hand to render 
spiritual aid and consolation in case of 
need. If any of the riders should be 
hurt, it would be very convenient to have 
a minister of the gospel on the spot.” 

“ How very considerate ! I had not 
thought of your sacrificing your own feel- 
ings in that way, my dear ^neas,” said 
Mr. Harfleur, turning away to hide the 
sneer that curled the very tips of his 
moustache ; “ and I suppose we may also 
depend upon you to help look after the 
ladies in case there should be any trouble 
with the horses?” 

‘‘ Y-e-e-e-s, of course,” drawled ^neas, 
looking uneasy, for the mention of horses 
always made him nervous; “though I, 
ahem, don’t like riding, you know, and 
since I find Miss Ruthie in the same cate- 
gory, I suppose we shall have to keep one 
another in countenance, and find consola- 
tion in each other’s society for the pleas- 
ure we may lose by our want of skill in 
the saddle, he ! he ! he !” 

Ruth did not dare to hint what poor 
consolation that would be to her, for fear 
of offending her father. His manner was 
so enigmatical that she could not tell 
what were his real feelings towards 
^neas Tadpole. She thought she de- 
tected a bitter irony lurking under his 
show of deference, but it was so covert, so 
secret, so deep, that she could hardly say 
whether it were really there or whether 
her own contempt for ^Eneas merely made 


90 


A FA.VILY SECRET. 


her fancy so. In the uncertainty she 
judged it best to s\yallow her disgust and 
say nothing, as the course least likely in 
any case to displease her father, whom 
she feared as much as she detested ^neas. 
Mr. Ilarfleur answered for her, — 

“ Oh, yes, certainly,” he said, with a 
bland smile ; “ we’ll arrange all that. I 
am to go with Mrs. Norgood in the pony 
p^haeton, so I’ll resign to you my brett with 
Pasha and Emir. You'll have the best 
turnout in the crowd. I’ve just been to 
the stables, and the thorough-breds are 
in splendid condition ; I’ll go and order 
them out for you.” 

The pious ^neas turned pale. The 
idea of driving himself would have upset 
his nerves under any circumstances, and 
he had seen those fiery steeds prancing 
and rearing under their master’s hand 
too often not to know that his own was 
no match for them. He coughed a little 
deprecatory cough, but before he could 
begin a remonstrance his solicitous host 
had left the room. 

A few minutes afterwards he appeared 
at the stable-door, and surprised the busy 
grooms within by ordering Pasha and 
Emir. to be harnessed to the brett. They 
were two fiery, blooded horses not yet 
fully trained, and so furious and un- 
manageable that it was not safe to drive 
them under any circumstances, and sheer 
madness to trust them to inexperienced 
hands, especially in a crowd where horses 
are always inclined to be unruly, and one 
fractious animal endangers every vehicle 
near it. Very few people liked to risk 
their necks behind Pasha and Emir, and 
no one had ever been trusted with the 
reins except Mr. Harfleur himself, and 
the groom who had special charge of 
them. This boy was in the stable when 
Mr. Ilarfleur issued his orders, and 
though it was a bold undertaking for 
any man, much less one of his own slaves, 
to gainsay Julian Harfleur, the cautious 
groom ventured a feeble remonstrance. 

“You see, massa, dey ain’t been druv 
now for three da3"s hand-runnin’, and dey 
be unusual peert like,” he said, taking 
off his hat and cowering humbly before 
the stern figure of his master. “ It ’ud 
be dangersome for to drive ’em ’long wi’ 
all dern t’other bosses, and might make 
dem ladies oneas ” 

“ Hold your impudent tongue, and do 
as I bid you,” was all the poor darkey 
got for his pains. Before he had time to 
do more than draw out the brett, Mr. 
Harfleur suddenly bethought him of some 
urgent business he had with a neighbor, ' 


and dispatched the groom to the planta- 
tion of the latter, five miles distant. 
Then, calling to his assistance a half- 
grown bo}^ that Deny, the groom, had in 
training, he proceeded to harness the 
horses himself. He was very particular 
in examining every strap and buckle, 
and was especially careful about one of 
the reins, which he said had got a little 
out of order. When he drove round to 
the front gate the rest of the party were 
just starting off, and only Mrs. Norgood, 
Ruth, and the pious ^neas were left 
standing on the piazza. Mr. Harfleur 
hastened to assist Mrs. Norgood into the 
phaeton, with a polite apology for his own 
tardiness, then turning to Aeneas, — 

“Now, my dear Tadpole,” said he, 
“3"Ou and Ruth are to have the honor of 
riding behind my blooded steeds to-day. 
You must not feel too highly compli- 
mented though,” he added, jocularly, 
“ for I only let you have them because 
all the other horses are in use. You must 
keep a steady hand, ^neas : the}^ are 
always disposed to be a little frisky when 
they first start.” 

Mr. Tadpole did not appear very sen- 
sible to the honor conferred upon him. 
He glanced uneasily at the splendid ani- 
mals as they stood impatiently pawing 
the ground, taxing the utmost strength 
of the two grooms who had them in 
charge to hold them back. 

“ Don’t you think, Mr. Harfleur,” he 
protested, rubbing his hands nervously 
together, “ that thej" are too unsafe to — 
a — hem — to trust a lady behind them ? I 
am not uneasy on my own account, but 
for Miss Ruthie j would it be lawful to 
risk her life ?” 

“Oh, I am not a bit afraid,” said 
Ruth, suspecting at once the true state of 
the case, and losing all sense of danger 
to herself in the pleasure of worrying 
^neas ; I like spirited horses.” And, 
with the temerity of ignorance, she 
stepped up to Emir, and reached out her 
hand to pat him on the neck. The ani- 
mal made a plunge that sent the groom 
who held him on a somersault across 
the road, and surprised the pious ^neas 
into a most unclerical leap into the air. 
Strange to say, Ruth received not the 
slightest detriment, and seemed half in- 
clined to repeat the experiment for Mr. 
Tadpole’s benefit, as soon as her father 
succeeded in again quieting the horses. 

“ You see now how dangerous they are. 
Miss Ruthie,” gasped ^neas, trembling 
in every limb. “ It would be tempting 
' Providence to trust yourself behind such 


JENEAS FALLS INTO THE HANDS OF THE PHILISTINES. 91 


untamed creatures. I would not mind it 
on my own account, hut it is my duty, as 
a minister of the gospel, to hold the lives 
of my fellow-creatures dear ; and — o — h, 

Miss Kuthie ” The horses had made 

another plunge, and he actually clung to 
her dress in terror. 

Ruth was not of a timid disposition, 
and, supposing one of the grooms would 
drive, who of course knew all about the 
horses, she did not concern herself about 
iEneas’s inefficiency. She was too igno- 
rant of such matters to appreciate the 
danger she was incurring, and even if she 
had been fully sensible of it, the pleasure 
of tormenting ^iieas would have gone 
far towards compensating this malicious 
oung woman for the prospect of getting 
er own neck broken. 

‘‘ Don’t disturb yourself on my account, 
Mr. Tadpole,” she said. I am not at 
all alarmed ; there, they are getting quiet 
now; we had better jump in before they 
start again.” 

Seeing there was no help in that quar- 
ter, he turned to Mr. Harlleur and said, 
in an appealing tone, — 

You’ll drive us yourself, I guess?” 

“Why, no,” answered Mr. Harfleur, 
in his pleasant, humorous way. “ That 
would spoil the tete-d-tete, you know ; two’s 
company, three’s a crowd, — ha ! ha ! ha ! 
and, besides, I could not leave Mrs. Nor- 
good alone; but, if you don’t like the 
trouble of driving, Davy there can take 
the reins ; managing such horses as these 
is a sad check to conversation. Up, there, 
Davy, and take the lines. ” 

There was no help for it now, except to 
back square out, and leave Miss Harfleur 
to risk her neck alone, — a course from 
which there were, as Mr. Harfleur sus- 
pected, stronger motives than mere worldly 
pride to deter this exalted soul ; so, with 
a face as white as a sheet and a spirit 
full of terrible forebodings, he held out 
his cold, trembling hand to assist Ruth 
into the vehicle, when another hand sud- 
denly thrust it aside, and George Dalton 
interposed. 

“Good heavens! Mr. Harfleur,” he ex- 
claimed, seizing Ruth by the arm and 
drawing her away from the brett, “you 
certainly are not going to let anybody risk 
their necks behind those savage brutes ; 
with Davy to drive, too ! It’s downright 
homicide.” 

Mr. Harfleur changed color as George 
uttered the word. 

“ T must say,” he replied, with an air 
of frankness, “ that I did not like their 
risking the horses myself, but there Avas 


nothing else left in the stable. That 
cavalry troop yonder has got everything 
that can move under the saddle; and, 
unluckily, Derry has gone off to Mr. 
Ridgeley’s, and won’t be back under two 
hours.” 

“ In that case,” said George, “ with 
your permission and Miss Harfleur' s, I 
will drive her myself.” 

Mr. Harfleur scanned George’s face 
narrowly, and a furtive smile played 
round his lips, as he read there the traces 
of a wild night’s debauch. 

“ Certainly, George ; I shall be greatly 
obliged to you,” was his gracious reply. 
“ Pasha and Emir will be as safe as a 
pair of hobby-horses under your exper- 
ienced hand. There, my dear Tadj)ole, 
you have no cause of anxiety now, Avith 
such a famous whip as Major Dalton to 
hold the lines for you.” 

Mr. Tadpole’s countenance, Avhich had 
brightened visibly on George’s first inter- 
ference, now fell again, and Mr. Harfleur’ s 
assurance seemed to him anything but 
reassuring, as he remembered George’s 
habitual intemperance, and conjured up 
aAvful pictures in his mind of the direful 
consequences that might result from the 
fury of a pair of ungovernable coursers 
in the reckless hands of a drunken man. 
He knew the wild, dare-devil spirit that 
possessed George in his fits of intoxica- 
tion, Avhich were, alas! of very frequent 
occurrence, and he thought, as he observed 
the young man’s face more closely, that 
he detected signs of recent hard drinking. 
Instead of abating his anxiety, George’s 
presence, in this condition, only increased 
his terrors, and it seemed to the unlucky 
^neas that all the poAvers of darkness 
were conspiring against him. He took 
advantage of the moment’s delay, Avhile 
George Avas examining the harness, to sug- 
gest to Mr. Harfleur that Major Dalton’s 
condition Avas, a — hem, a — hem, a little 
too, a — too intoxicated for him to be trusted 
where a lady Avas concerned. 

“ It is our duty, you knoAV, to consider 
the safety of the ladies, even Avhere they 
do not consider it themselves.” 

And, indeed, if the alacrity with which 
Ruth had acceded to Major Dalton’s prop- 
osition may be taken as a test, she showed 
very little regard, indeed, to her own 
safety. 

“ Dalton is all right,” said Mr. Harfleur, 
with a sinister look in his eye that gave 
a double meaning to the words ; and, be- 
fore ^neas could say more, he was inter- 
rupted by a sudden exclamation from the 
object of his terrors : 


92 


A FAMILY SECRET. 


“ Good gracious, the whole thing is out 
of order I” cried George, giving the lines 
an impatient jerk. “ It Avould be as much 
as our lives are worth to start off in this 
trim : the right trace there is too short, 
the martingales are too tight, and I'll be 
hanged if some fool hasn’t gone and tied 
the left rein with a bit of flimsy cotton 
string! Davy, you rascal, where’s the 
buckle to this rein? Quick, you dog!” 

Mr. Harfleur reddened a little at the 
unceremonious epithet applied so uncon- 
sciously to his own handiwork, but ex- 
pressed surprise that the harness should 
have been put on in so slovenly a fashion, 
and helped George make things right. 

“ Now,” said George, gathering up the 
reins after he had thoroughly inspected 
every seam and buckle, “ we are all tight 
and fast. Get on my filly, Davy, and ride 
behind, to take the horses when we reach 
Sandy Circle. Come, Ruth, get in now, 
up there on the front seat by me. Here, 
Mr. Tadpole, in with you.” And before 
.^neas could utter a remonstrance he 
found himself doubled up on the back 
seat of the brett, which he had all to him- 
self, with ample leisure to contemplate 
the backs of his companions and reflect 
on the horrors of the situation. In an- 
other moment George had sprung into 
his place, and away they went like wild- 
fire. The rapidity of the motion and 
excess of his fear almost took Eneas’s 
breath away, so that for the first mile or 
two he could only sit huddled up where 
George had placed him, clinging to the 
back of the vehicle to steady himself, and 
uttering secret ejaculations to heaven 
with more sincerity and fervor than he 
had ever prayed before. 

George and Ruth were pretty well 
aware of the state of his feelings, which 
caused those profane and impious young 
persons to cast frequent glances behind 
them in intense enjoyment of his misery. 

“Isn’t this delightful, Mr. Tadpole?” 
said Ruth, maliciously, after they had 
gone a mile or two. 

“Oh, ah, y-e-e-e-s, very noice. Miss 
Ruthie,” faltered ^Eneas, with a ghastly 
smile, while the cold sweat oozed from 
every pore and stood in glistening drops 
on his pale, cadaverous face ; “ but don’t 
you think ” 

The unfinished sentence terminated in 
an irrepressible groan, as a sudden turn 
in their course nearly whirled JEneas off 
his seat, and brought to view at the same 
time still greater dangers ahead, where 
the road ran for nearly a mile close along 
the river’s edge, in a winding, zigzag 


course, full of abrupt turns and windings. 
The banks were unusually high and pre- 
cipitous just there, while a chain of those 
bottomless pits called lime-sinks, con- 
nected probably by some subterranean 
channel with the stream, bordered their 
way on the other side, leaving barely 
room to pass, and even this was en- 
croached upon in sundry places by the 
debris of fallen pines uprooted by a recent 
storm. As all these snares and pitfalls 
unfolded themselves before Eneas’s eyes 
he could no longer contain his fears, but, 
catching nervously at George’s arm, he 
asked, in a terrified whisper, — 

“ Is not this a very dangerous place. 
Major Dalton?” 

“Oh, yes,” said George, exchanging a 
look of intelligence with Ruth; “there 
have been more dreadful accidents just 
along here than anywhere else within 
thirty miles of South Ambury. I wouldn’t 
give that,” snapping his thumb and fore- 
finger, “for the life of any man who 
should lose control of his horse in such a 
place as this. There’s a slough not far 
ahead of us that has encroached upon 
the road till the lightest vehicle can 
hardly find room to pass.” 

“ Then hadn’t we better go a little 
slower?” said ^Eneas, in a quaking voice; 
“couldn’t you drive a little more care- 
fully, Major Dalton?” 

“Oh, the faster we go the sooner the 
danger will be over,’^ returned George, im- 
itating, for Eneas’s benefit, the reckless- 
ness of his drunken moods ; and, suiting 
his action to the words, he gave the reins 
more freely. 

“Do, Major Dalton,’^ pleaded iEneas, 
“I entreat you — think of the young 
lady — for Miss Ruthie’ s sake ” 

“Oh, never mind me, I like it. Can’t 
we go a little faster, George?” said Ruth, 
mercilessly. 

“But it’s wrong; we have no right to 
risk our lives so recklessly,” gasped 
jEneas; “it’s my duty as a minister of 
the gospel to prevent ” 

In his desperation he had grasped 
George’s arm, and would have caused 
him to lose control of the reins if the 
Intter had not instantly hurled him back 
into his seat, with a violence that sent 
him reeling among the silken cushions, 
in the belief that this was the first shock 
of the general wreck. In addition to 
his other woes, riding always made Mr, 
Tadpole “ seasick,” — indeed, he had a 
look of chronic seasickness about him, — 
and he Avas obliged now to succumb to 
the weakness that laid him prostrate on 


JSjYEAS falls into the hands of the PHILISTINES. 93 


his cushions, to the great relief of his 
wicked companions, who were thus vir- 
tually rid of his presence. 

There was more reason for Mr. Tad- 
pole’s^ fears, just at that moment, than 
even he, happily for himself, was aware 
of. In catching hold of George and 
diverting his attention for an instant 
from the horses, he had caused him not 
exactly to lose control of the animals, 
but allowed them to gain so much the 
advantage that it was now a drawn battle 
between them in the struggle for mastery, 
lie held the reins firmly, and still had 
power to guide their course, but could 
not check their speed. Ruth saw that 
something was wrong ; she looked into 
George’s face, and knew by the anxious, 
watchful expression of his eye that there 
was danger, but that George was not 
afraid of it, and there was something in 
his air of calm intrepidity and self-posses- 
sion that inspired her with a feeling of 
safety. Courage is as contagious as fear 
with people who are not constitutionally 
cowards, and Ruth’s strongest impres- 
sion at this moment of danger was a 
feeling of unmingled admiration at the 
masterly way in which George guided his 
mad team, with scarcely more visible 
efibrt than if he were flying a kite. There 
was no excitement, no fuss, no apparent 
straining of nerve or muscle, only a 
watchful eye, keen to detect every dan- 
ger, and a steady hand to avoid it. One 
moment they went whirling at a fearful 
pace round the very brink of some sharp, 
projecting ledge, grazing the border so 
narrowly that the sand and pebbles dis- 
turbed by their wheels fell with a plash 
into the river below, while the next 
minute brought them square abreast of 
a treacherous lime-sink, where the next 
step forward would have been to utter 
destruction but for that adroit pressure 
upon the reins which turned the horses’ 
heads just in time to escape the raging 
Charybdis on one hand without falling 
into the jaws of the yawning Scylla on 
the other. 

There is nothing so captivating to 
women as that quality in the other sex 
which exhibits itself in a mastery over 
horses. However different the two ani- 
mals may be in other respects, there is this 
affinity between women and horses — that 
the same men are usually powerful with 
both. A man may spell every word in the 
dictionary -wrong, may take all sorts of 
liberties with English grammar, and may 
even practice economy in the matter of 
pocket-handkerchiefs and shirt-collars, 


without exciting half the contempt among 
women that they Avill feel if he makes an 
awkward figure on horseback. Ruth was 
not exempt from the common foible of 
her sex; and when, at the end of a mile 
or two, the fiery team which George had 
in hand seemed to grow weary of the 
struggle, and, recognizing his masterly 
power, yielded themselves again entirely 
to his control, her first exclamation was 
one not of relief, but of admiration. 

“Bravo, George!” she cried, as they 
emerged upon a more open road and he 
was enabled to relax somewhat his vigi- 
lant attention to the lines ; “ how splen- 
didly you managed it! Why don’t you 
ride at the tournament? I am sure you 
would carry off all the honors.” 

“And would you wear the crown if I 
were to win it for you ?” he asked. 

Ruth reflected a moment, then an- 
swered, very decidedly, “No.” 

“ No ; why not ?” 

“Because,” she replied, after a little 
hesitation, “ I think Claude expects to 
be crowned, and I do not care to appear 
as my sister’s rival in a triumph upon 
which vshe has set her heart.” 

“ That is a reason that does credit to 
your heart, Ruth,” said George, with an 
admiring glance. “ I wish other women 
were like you, — at least, I wish one 
other was.” 

“And what other woman do you wish 
was like me?” asked Ruth, laughing. 

“One who might have made a better 
man of me,” said George, bitterly, “ if 
she had chosen ; one who could have 
brought out whatever good there might 
have been in me, and for whose sake I 
would have striven and battled against 
the evil all my life ; but she chose rather 
to blast and ruin my whole future, and 
make me the miserable drunken dog that 
you see.” 

“ Drunken ! oh, George !” And Ruth 
fixed upon him a look full of reproach. 
George smiled a bitter smile. 

“ Don’t be frightened at me,” he said, 
reining in the horses, that were still 
dashing along at a break-neck speed, to 
a more moderate pace. “I am as sober 
as a judge now, and I mean to be so all 
day. I’m not so far gone yet but I can 
keep from getting drunk when I have a 
lady under my charge.” 

“ It was not myself I was thinking of, 
George,” she replied, “but you.” 

“ Me ? I’m not worth thinking of at 
all, Ruth,” he answered, sadly. “ When 
I remember what I am, it seems like 
profanation almost to ask for your confi- 


94 


A FAMILY SECRET, 


dence, but I can’t help it. There are 
not many people whose friendship I care 
for, but I feel already as if I could not well 
do without yours, and I like to be near 
you, though, I must confess, I never en- 
tertain so uncomfortable an opinion of 
myself as when in your presence ; per- 
haps because it’s only then that I really 
care to be something different from what 
I am. So you see, if you cannot make 
me good, Ruth, you can at least make 
me uncomfortable in being bad.” 

“ Then I hope you are not quite so bad 
as you call yourself, George,” Ruth an- 
swered, cheerfully ; and since you give 
me credit for so much, I wish I could 
persuade you to leave off altogether the 
vice that is ” 

“ Too late, too late for that now,” in- 
terrupted George, gloomily, shaking his 
head. “If you had been my sister, if I 
had known you before I met Jier^ you 
might have saved me ; but what does it 
matter now ? . When the only woman 
a man ever has loved or ever can love 
has basely deceived and trifled with him, 
has trampled under foot all the nobler 
instincts of his nature, what is left him 
but to follow in the path she has opened, 
and go to the dogs as fast as ho can?” 

“And justify her treatment of him,” 
said Ruth. “ A man of your sense ought 
to reason better than that, George.” 

“ Reason ! Ila! ha !’^ laughed George, 
bitterly. “ You don’t know how little 
reason has to do with these things, Ruth. 
You don’t know ” he paused a mo- 

ment, then added, abruptly, “ but you do 
know my friend Malvern?” 

Ruth gave a sudden start, and crim- 
soned to the very roots of her hair, at 
this abrupt mention of a name that 
seemed to have so little connection with 
what they were talking about. Had he 
done it designedly, or — and her heart 
beat violently at the thought — had the 
fascinations of his friend been the fatal 
cause of poor George’s disappointment? 

Ruth’s involuntary betrayal of emotion 
did not escape her companion ; but what- 
ever he may have divined as to its true 
cause, he was not a man to make an un- 
generous use of the knowledge. He re- 
garded her for one moment with a sad, 
quiet smile that seemed like the reflection 
of a sigh, then generously turned his eyes 
away, and proceeded with what he had 
been saying. 

“ You know my friend Malvern, I was 
going to say, well enough, no doubt, to 
have observed the rare attractions of 
person and manner with which he is en- 


dowed, and can figure to yourself, perhaps, 
the empire he might establish over any 
woman who should be so fortunate as 
to fix his somewhat unstable affections. 
Well,” he went on, after a short pause, 
“ Malvern has a sister who is even more 
richly endowed with all the graces of her 
sex than he is with those of his, — at least 
I thought so once.” 

Ruth breathed more freely. “ I have 
seen her picture,” she said ; “ she is very 
like her brother.” 

“ Yes ; not so strikingly handsome, per- 
haps ; at least I don’t remember that her 
face appeared to me, at first, so particu- 
larly beautiful ; I wish to heaven I had 
never learned to think it so!” He turned 
away, and pressed his hand nervously to 
his brow. It was some moments before 
he resumed. 

“ I am not a very susceptible man, as 
you may judge, Ruth ; and although I 
was twenty-eight years old when I first 
met her, Julia Malvern was the first and 
only woman that I have ever loved. It 
was only when I thought myself loved by 
her that I felt inspired to shake off the 
natural indolence of my disposition add 
exercise the capabilities that lay dormant 
within me. With the love of that woman 
I would have become something as dif- 
ferent from what I am as my best friend 
could wish me. If I had never met her I 
should be no worse than nature made 
me ; now I am what the hand of a faith- 
less woman has left me.” 

Ruth was too ignorant of the world to 
know how prone men are to lay their vices 
at the door of women who have slighted 
their affections *, and besides her natural 
interest in a love-stOry, of which Audley 
Malvern’s sister was the heroine, she was 
moved by a woman's native impulse to 
soothe and comfort. Laying her hand 
gently on George’s arm, she said, in a 
hopeful, cheering voice, — 

“Don’t despair yet, George; women 
are not always as heartless as they seem. 
You have had some little quarrel with 
this Miss Malvern, which you have both 
magnified and embittered with the usual 
unreasonableness of lovers. I imagine 
that you can be very obstinate and un- 
compromising, George, when you choose ; 
and I should judge from her picture that 
Miss Malvern is a haughty, unyielding 
woman ; and so, between you, you have 
made a sad business of some trifle that 
nobody else would have thought worth 
quarreling about, — and love is so jealous 
and exacting. But never mind ; Claude 
has invited her to the White House, you 


jENEAS falls into the hands of the PHILISTINES. 95 


know, and if she comes, there will be 
opportunities for explanations and eluci- 
dations that you don’t dream of now, 
and, in short, I shouldn’t wonder if before 
six months are over I have to resign all 
my claims upon j^our notice to the supe- 
rior rights of Mrs. Julia Dalton.” 

“Never!” cried George, impetuously, 
“ don’t link my name with hers, even in 
fancy, Ruth. If she had only been faith- 
less to me, — if she had not been false to 
her own heart, — I might forgive her ; but 
when a woman like Julia Malvern — not 
a poor little fool that don’t know any 
better, but a magnificent, peerless creature 
like Julia — deliberately weighs the most 
sacred feelings of her nature in the 
balance with a blockhead’s gold ; when 
she calmly chooses between the man she 
loves and the treasure of a man she 
despises, — rejecting the love for the 
money, — what excuse is there for her, 
and what can the man do who respects 
himself but detest and despise her? If 
she were fickle she would perhaps be only 
what other women are : but Julia is not 
that. I believe she loves me at this mo- 
ment as well as she did when — when I 
believed her love worth having ; and that 
is why I hate her so. Make her my 
wife? If she were at my feet this minute, 
Pd ” 

He did not finish the sentence, but, 
setting his teeth firmly together, drove 
on for some time in silence. There was 
something terrible in his look, and Ruth 
shrank away from him, startled at the 
strength of passion he displayed. She 
did not know what to say, so waited for 
him to resume, which he did presently, 
in a calmer tone. 

“ She didn’t know that I was rich 
then ; I didn’t know it myself, for my 
uncle had not as yet definitely settled his 
property in my favor. I knew that I 
had expectations, but somehow I never 
thought much about them one way or 
another. I never cared about money for 
its own sake, and laid so little stress 
upon my expectations that I did not 
even think to tell Julia that I had a rich 
uncle. But she was rich herself then, 
and would have to sacrifice nothing in 
taking me ; only her father was loath to 
give her up to a roving army man, and 
insisted that she should wait to be mar- 
ried till she was twenty-five. In the 
mean time the war broke out, and the 
Malverns were among the very first vic- 
tims. You know the story, — it made a 
great sensation at the time; her father 
was an invalid, and died of that night’s 


work, and the rest of them were exposed 
to intolerable hardships. Poor Julia 1” 
he sighed, in spite of himself. 

“ As soon as I heard of her misfor- 
tunes I hastened to her, and on the way 
received the letter from my uncle in 
which he stated definitely his intention 
of making me his heir, and urged me to 
come home, that he might settle the busi- 
ness. Then, for the first time in my life, 
I began to think something of my pros- 
pects. I formed a delightful little plan 
for surprising Julia. I would not tell 
her I was going to be rich ; I could not 
rob myself of even that poor test of her 
affection. I exulted in the thought that 
she loved me for myself alone. She 
should marry me, the poor lieutenant, 
with nothing but his love to offer, and 
then I would take her home, and my 
uncle might bestow his millions upon her 
if he chose ; I did not want them for 
myself. Night and day my brain was 
busy with thoughts of all I would do 
to make Julia happy. But what was the 
end of my dreams? She broke with me 
outright, because she had lost her money, 
and I was, she said, too poor to marry 
her without it ; and she uttered a lot of 
stuff to the same effect that she had 
picked up from worldly old women, and 
I’d have died then rather than tell her 
better, though my uncle’s letter was in 
my pocket. I had never cared for her 
money, and, by heaven ! no woman shall 
ever marry me for mine 1 The sort of 
thing that can be had for hire is not the 
love a man wants to marry for. I was 
angry, and said something of that sort to 
her, and then she fired up like, a meteor. 
Great heaven ! how she did blaze forth at 
me, and how magnificent she looked in 
her anger ! It maddened me to fury. I 
have got the dev — I mean the, a — an 
awful temper myself, when I am roused, 
— and I was thoroughly roused then, — 
and I don’t know what I said, but it 
made a breach between us that can never 
be healed. She has been fooling ever 
since with every rich blockhead that 
comes in her way, intent upon repairing 
her damaged fortunes, I presume ; but 
whether none of them could offer induce- 
ments sufficient to gratify her insatiable 
ambition, whether the memory of better 
things still held her back, she trifled 
with them all, until old General Bag- 
pipe, the most infamous old dolt in the 
whole army, lays his purse and honors at 
her feet ; and Audley tells me she is ac- 
tually going to marry him, — a broken- 
down old debauchee ; an ill-favored. 


96 


A FAMILY SECRET. 


disgusting, purse-proud old fool, — thus 
proving herself too utterly base and mer- 
cenary for the respect, much less the 
love, of any decent man. Ah, Ruth, can 
you blame me for being what I am, 
when Julia Malvern has made herself 
what she is ?’’ 

“ She may have done wrong, George, 
I grant,” said Ruth, “ but that does not 
excuse you for doing yourself a greater 
wrong.” 

‘‘Perhaps not; but it is too late now 
ever to undo the wrong. Forgive me if 
I have talked too much about myself ; 
the strongest of us will sometimes be 
weak enough to talk about our own suf- 
ferings ; but I cannot try your patience 
longer, for here we are at the tourna- 
ment-ground.” 


CHAPTER XXI, 

THE TOURNAMENT. 

The til ting-ground of the South Am- 
bury chivalry was an ancient lake-bed 
about three miles from the town, called, 
on account of its rounded outline and 
powdery surface, the Sandy Circle. It 
was a large open basin, bearing no trace 
of vegetation, but covered all over with 
sand of such dazzling whiteness as almost 
blinded the eyes to look upon it. This coat 
of snowy brightness ceased abruptly at the 
margin of the lake-bed, where the wood- 
fern and wire-grass resumed their sway. 
The line of demarkation was still further 
defined by a ring of majestic live-oaks 
that once laved their pendent branches 
in the waters of the limpid lake. They 
extended in an unbroken circle entirely 
round the basin, forming the most at- 
tractive feature of this remarkable spot, 
with their stately heads still slightly bent 
towards the place of the vanished waters, 
while the long gray moss-wreaths that 
hung from every bough trailed upon the 
thirsty margin, and, swayed by the wind, 
left fantastic traceries on the barren sand. 

The surface of the basin sloped gently 
towards the centre, where there was a level 
space some thirty yards or more in diam- 
eter, kept slightly moist in Avinter by the 
constant percolation of rain-water through 
the soil. There was just enough moisture 
in ordinary seasons to render the sand firm 
and compact, so as to afford a good footing 
for horses, while the sloping sides of the 


basin formed a natural amphitheatre of 
more majestic proportions than the Ro- 
man Colosseum. 

Just outside the basin, on the east, the 
ground suddenly fell in a deep hollow or 
ravine, at the bottom of which, gushing 
from under a ridge of earth which walls in 
the deserted lake-bed on that side, burst 
forth one of the most magnificent blue 
springs to be seen in all the Southern 
country. There is a tradition derived 
from the aborigines that the blue spring 
did not exist contemporaneously with the 
lake, but broke out at the time of its dis- 
appearance. The waters have never been 
fathomed at their source, owing to the 
violence with which they rush upward, 
but a feAY rods below they measure over 
a hundred and twenty feet, and if cleared 
of the cypress-knees and other sAvamp 
growth that cumber their channel, would 
float a small-sized steamer up to the very 
spot where they come seething from the 
boAvels of the earth. Though tinged Avith 
the beautiful azure hue from which these 
limestone springs derive their name, they 
are so clear that you can count the pebbles 
on the bottom, or number the scales of the 
tiniest fishes that float through their lim- 
pid AvaA^es. Every object viewed through 
this enchanted medium seems tinted Avith 
a kind of rainbow hue, and the great 
ledges of limestone through which the 
current forces its way upAvard sparkle 
like a wall of gems. The Avaters seem to 
be urged onward by some powerful force, 
for they come surging and boiling to the 
light in a huge jet, that flings itself aloft 
with such violence as to dash aside heavy 
stones and billets of wood when cast upon 
them. The escape of this wonderful 
stream from its subterranean prison is 
accompanied by a curious gurgling sound, 
that deepens at intervals into a prolonged 
roll, like the echo of a human groan way 
doAvn in the depths of the earth, whence 
its Indian name, Tongateeska, the sighing 
stream, more commonly called Taiha’s 
Fountain, from the Indian legend con- 
nected with the spot. 

In the olden time, before the Petaulas 
had been driven from their hunting- 
grounds by the poAverful Muscogees, the 
beautiful princess Taihaused to meet her 
lover, Kiolaskee, a young Muscogee chief, 
in the secret dell on the eastern side of the 
lake. Owando, her father, who Avanted 
Taiha to marry the powerful old chief of 
the Seminoles, Avas very angry when he 
found that his daughter Avas secretly en- 
couraging the addresses of his enemy, but 
not daring to meet the bold young warrior 


THE TOURNAMENT. 


97 


in open combat, treacherously waylaid 
him, and had his murdered body flung 
into the lake. The Great Spirit, in pun- 
ishment of Owando’s crime, dried up the 
waters of the lake, whence the name, 
Ghesnee Gwavissa, — vanished water, — af- 
terwards changed by the pale-faced intrud- 
ers into the prosaic Anglo-Saxon of Sandy 
Circle. 

Talha, when she found that her lover 
was murdered, used to go every day to 
the trysting-place to weep for him and 
bewail her approaching nuptials with the 
Seminole, which cruel Owando was de- 
termined to force upon her, till at last, 
on the day before the wedding, the earth 
suddenly gave way beneath her feet as 
she stood weeping fur Keolaskee, and the 
waters of the Tongateeska gushed out, 
engulfing poor Taiha forever beneath 
their crystal waves, where, it is said, she 
still sits weeping at the source of the 
fountain, and the sound of her lamenta- 
tions is borne upward on the waters. 

The road by which George had driven 
made half the circuit of the ancient lake- 
bed, and crossed the creek, or rather 
river, that issues from Taiha’ s Fountain, 
before reaching the grand entrance to the 
tilting-ground. As the horses’ feet struck 
the first planks of the somewhat dilapi- 
dated wooden bridge that spanned the cur- 
rent, Ruth, catching her first glimpse of 
the sapphire waters, uttered a cry of de- 
light, and begged George to stop and let her 
gaze on the glorious spectacle. Her sudden 
exclamation roused JEneas from the state 
of collapse into which the dizziness and 
nausea produced by the unwonted mo- 
tions and emotions of the last few hours 
had plunged him *, he heard the clatter 
of the horses’ hoofs upon the bridge, he 
heard the rushing of water, he heard 
Miss Ilarfleur’s sudden cry, and, inter- 

reting everything according to his fears, 

e gave up all for lost, and uttered a 
groan so dismal that Ruth looked round 
in alarm, and George groAvled between 
his teeth, “ Confound the fool, what ails 
him now?” 

Even when the vehicle stopped, he was 
not quite sure, at first, but they were all 
at the bottom of the watery grave he had 
been dreading so long*, but when he com- 
prehended the real state of the case, he 
took such eager advantage of. the oppor- 
tunity that he had rolled himself out of 
the brett, and was clinging to the railing 
of the bridge, before anybody else had 
time to stir. 

For once in her life Ruth seemed in- 
clined to follow iEneas Tadpole, and 


George, calling Davy to hold the horses, 
helped her out of the brett, and led her 
down to the brink of the wonderful foun- 
tain. Ruth’s artistic eye took in at a 
glance all the beauties of the scene. 
The sloping sides of the ravine through 
which Taiha’ s Fountain poured its waters 
were shaded by tall magnolias, and car- 
peted with moss and ferns. From the 
margin of the stream gigantic cypresses 
shot up towards the sky, their lofty heads 
crowned with tufts of brown leaves, and 
veiled in gray moss-wreaths, while huge 
aquatic vines hugged their mighty trunks 
like anacondas coiling round their prey. 
A little way down the stream, a family 
of turtles were lazily sunning themselves 
on a log, and still farther, where the 
channel began to widen into a vast cane- 
brake, stood a solitary crane on a decayed 
cypress stump, looking the very picture 
of loneliness and isolation. 

If George’s sense of the picturesque 
was less profoundly moved by a scene 
that was so familiar to him, he did not 
disturb Ruth’s enjoyment of it by ill- 
timed or impertinent observations. There 
is something in the grander works of na- 
ture that imposes silence, even upon the 
most heedless ; language seems as imper- 
tinent as it is impotent in the presence 
of God’s great works, and the highest 
tribute that can be paid to any monument, 
whether of nature or of art, is the elo- 
quent applause of silence. 

In the mean time, Mr. Tadpole, having 
recovered somewhat from the effects of 
his ride, rejoined his companions, and 
proceeded conscientiously to make him- 
self a<rreeable. He slunk up close to 
Miss Harfleur’s side, cleared his throat, 
coughed two or three times by way of 
introduction, and then observed, with due 
gravity,— 

“A truly magnificent spectacle. Miss 
Ruthie. Do you feel that your spirit 
partakes of the exaltation of the scene?” 

Ruth turned away impatiently without 
deigning any response. George turned 
his head slightly and growled “ Umph !” 

The pious ^neas, taking this for en- 
couragement, addressed his next remark, 
which was of a more practical nature, to 
George : 

“Very fine water-power this, Maior 
Dalton. I guess it would keep in motion 
more machinery than the largest steam- 
engine. The Weathersford paper-collar 
factory is supplied by a stream not harf 
the size of this.” And he glanced round 
at Ruth to see what effect this display of 
practical wisdom had made upon her. 


98 


A FAMILY SECRET, 


She had nfioved a few paces down the 
stream, and was kneeling on the brink 
dabbling in the water with her white 
hands, no thought of paper-collar facto- 
ries or mill-wheels desecrating her enjoy- 
ment of the scene. Without making any 
reply to ^neas, George started away 
towards the young lady. 

What are you after, Ruth?” he asked, 
with a smile, as he paused and watched 
her occupation. 

“ Only trying to get some of that moss ; 
but it is too deep for me, though it seems 
almost at the surface,” she answered, 
pointing down to the bed of the stream, 
which was covered with a rank growth 
of aquatic moss, whose long green stems 
swayed to and fro in the current like 
water-snakes. 

“ You would have to be a good diver to 
reach that,” said George, “ and then would 
have nothing for your pains. That beau- 
tiful moss is a cheat and a delusion, like 
many other beautiful things in this world ; 
out of the \vater it is nothing but a string 
of green slime. The water itself is an- 
other cheat. You thought you could reach 
to the bottom with your hand, yet see 
here.” 

As he spoke, he reached out a yucca- 
spear which he had in his hand, and drew 
towards him the faded leaf of a species 
of mammoth water-lily floating near the 
shore ; and, wdien he had got it within 
reach, he seized the stem, and giving it a 
WTench that severed it from the root, pro- 
ceeded to draw out fathom after fathom, 
till it lay coiled like a long green rope at 
his feet. AVhile he was thus employed 
there came a sound of horses’ hoofs clat- 
tering down into the dell, and in another 
moment the rest of the White House 
party — whom Pasha and Emir had left 
far behind on the road — came into view, 
with Claude Ilarfleur and Audley Mal- 
vern galloping at their head. 

The W'hole party halted at the spring 
to refresh themselves before entering the 
crowded area around the lists. Audley 
assisted Claude to dismount ; then, after 
gazing a moment in mute admiration on 
the scene, he turned to Ruth and said, — 

“ You are right, Miss Ilarfleur 5 your 
piney-woods’ scenery does have its attrac- 
tions, I am obliged to confess. Upon my 
wwd, such a stream as this would make 
drowning almost a luxury, and it’s the 
best argument for the temperance cause I 
have ever seen. Here, bring me a cup, 
somebody ; I feel as if I could turn teeto- 
taler and drink nothing but cold water 
for the next half-hour.” 


^‘Here’s a cup, but we can give you 
something better than water to put in 
it. Don’t talk about teetotalism ; that’s 
heresy on a tournament-day,” said Mr. 
Ilarfleur, jocosely. 

And as he spoke, two servants ap- 
proached with glasses and bottles that 
had been carefully stow^ed aivay in one 
of the carriages. Everybody took some- 
thing except George Dalton, who, to the 
astonishment of the company, persistently 
refused to touch a drop, though pressed 
by Mr. Ilarfleur with effusive politeness. 

“ I have promised to play good boy to- 
day,” said George, laughing, and not even 
taking his hands out of his pockets, as 
Mr. Ilarfleur tendered him a brimming 
glass. “But save your liquor, and I’ll 
make up for it to-morrow by drinking the 
health of my good angel of to-day.” 

Mr. Ilarfleur continued to press the 
glass upon George, who at last received 
it from his hand, but, without touching it 
to his lips, poured the contents into the 
stream, saying, as he did so, — 

“ Here’s a libation to Mrs. Bacchus. I 
know she’s a temperance woman, — the 
wives of drunkards always are ; and for 
the next twenty-four hours I am a tee* 
to taler then, returning the empty gob- 
let, he said, in a lower tone, and there was 
no mistaking his seriousness this time, 
“ Mr. Ilarfleur, if I get drunk to-day, 
knowing, as I do, what will be the conse- 
quence if those savage brutes yonder once 
get from under my control, I am no better 
than a murderer.” 

Mr. Ilarfleur bit his lip and turned 
away. “ The devil take the Avhole trio!” 
he muttered; “it’s the first time in his 
w^hole life the cursed vagabond has ever 
refused to get drunk.” 

George and Ruth had the brett all to 
themselves when they started again. 
Aeneas, only too glad to have escaped 
thus far with life and limb, would as soon 
have thought of bestriding the wdieel of 
a railway locomotive as of voluntarily 
trusting himself again in George Dalton’s 
hands; so he contrived to secure a place 
in one of the carriages, wdiere he sat 
secure beside Miss Serena Birdsong, hold- 
ing on his knee the pasteboard bandbox 
that contained the crown Miss Serena 
had twined for the Queen of Love and 
Beauty. 

Ten minutes’ drive brought them to the 
scene of action, just as the riding was 
about to begin. The horses w^ere all un- 
harnessed, and the vehicles ranged around 
in the shade of the live-oaks that skirted 
this natural circus. As it would be tire- 


THE TOURNAMENT. 


99 


some to sit in the saddle during the whole 
day, those of the spectators who had come 
on" horseback gave their steeds in charge 
to their grooms, and sought more comfort- 
able quarters in the carriages of their 
- friends. Claude and Colonel Malvern 
shared between them the back seat of the 
brett, so opportunely vacated by iEneas. 
The brett, with its handsome occupants, 
soon became an object of universal atten- 
tion, and many a curious glance was di- 
rected towards the beautiful stranger by 
George Dalton’s side. 

The herald, or marshal of the day, as 
he was called, — for the So'uth Ambury 
knights were not much of antiquarians, — 
was no other than our old friend Major 
Maelstrom. He recognized Audley and 
Ruth with a flourishing salute, and took 
pains to have the brett placed in a good 
position. lie was covered with decora- 
tions, and made a tearing show as he went 
careering over the field on a splendid 
white charger, gayly bedizened, like its 
master. There was an orator of the day 
somewhere, too ; but Audley was greatly 
relieved to find that he had already held 
forth, and the riding was to begin at once. 

Our honest friend the major, as may 
be imagined, was not very deeply versed 
in heraldic lore, and made rather a bung- 
ling job of his announcements ; but as the 
knights themselves were not much wiser, 
they felt their dignity in no degree 
touched. The first who presented him- 
self at the lists gave in his title as “ Knight 
of the Golden Fleece and as the next 
two in succession called themselves, re- 
spectively, knights of the “ Holy Cross” 
and of “ St. John of Jerusalem,” the 
worthy major, reasoning inductively, na- 
turally concluded the little particle of W 
be as essential to designations of chivalry 
as its more ambitious French representa- 
tive to the titles of the Anglo-Norman 
aristocracy, and he clung to it as perti- 
naciously, gravely announcing “theCid” 
as Knight of the Cid,” and “ Coeur 
de Lion” as “ Knight of Richard Core 
de Lion.” 

The knights themselves were rather a 
motley crew ; but as the worthy planters 
of Petaula County were not very diligent 
students of Froissart and Comines, or even 
of Scott and Tennyson, their gravity was 
in no wise upset by a Launcelot of the 
Lake dressed as a New Orleans Zouave, 
or a Saladin the Great in cocked hat and 
knee-breeches. There was Harry Hot- 
spur, too, in a blue sailor-jacket; Bayard 
in the uniform of a Georgia militia gen- 
eral ; Robert Bruce in a Garibaldi shirt 


and Turkish trousers ; while a red-striped 
“Knight of Artillery” went caracoling 
over the field in blissful unconsciousness 
of the anachronism he was committing. 
“ The Black Prince” was objected to at 
first by our worthy major, on the ground 
that it would be derogatory to the dignity 
of the occasion, and likely to propagate 
incendiary ideas, for any one to appear in 
the character of a “ nigger” ; but, when 
the matter was explained to him, he with- 
drew his objections, merely insisting that 
the hero of Crecy and Poitiers should be 
announced as the “ Prince in Black,” and 
not called the “ Black Prince,” as if he 
was a nigger. 

It is but just to add, however, that 
some of the characters were admirably 
sustained. “ Red Jacket,” as represented 
by a lithe Texan Ranger, looked as if he 
was born in a wigwam, and the “ Knight 
of the Garter” would not have done 
discredit to a coronation day, though 
his title did scandalize some of the 
ladies ; and Miss Serena blushed be- 
hind her fan when he was announced, 
and wondered that anybody could be so 
indelicate. 

But if our honest rebel knights were 
somewhat befogged in the mists of chiv- 
alric tradition, they could not be charged 
with ignorance of its practices. The 
riding that day at Sandy Circle would 
have done honor to the Paladins of 
Charlemagne or the heroes of Arthur’s 
Round Table. It is true there was this 
slight difference, that our nineteenth 
century knights do not punch out each 
other’s brains, or run one another through 
the body by way of innocent diversion, 
yet their tilting is not altogether without 
the excitement of danger. When a sin- 
gle fiilse thrust at a ring may send it fly- 
ing back in the face of the luckless 
knight to deprive him of an eye or a 
tooth, the poising of his lance, albeit a 
wooden one, becomes a matter of some 
consequence ; when a single false step 
may send his charger headlong over one 
of the bars, or a sudden shying to right 
or left may dash the rider’s brains out 
against a ring-pole, it is plain that mod- 
ern tilting may be fraught with both 
danger and difficulty, although its object 
may not be to run Brian de Bois-Guil- 
bert through the ribs or to cleave Sir 
Launcelot’s skull. 

The number of rings usually put up is 
six, but the course was so long at Sandy 
Circle that it was increased to nine ; and 
the bars for leaping were placed at a 
height of three and a half feet from the 


100 


A FAMILY SECRET, 


irround, so that a man must be a skillful 
horseman even to enter the lists. The 
kniuhts first rode round a clear track 
one ])y one as they were announced by 
tlie herald, without attempting the rings, 
and it was evident from this preliminary 
manoeuvre that Red Jacket hid fair to 
carry off the honors of the day. Several 
of George’s acquaintance observing him 
as they rode into the lists,— »for he sat 
near the entrance, — cried out to him to 
join them, and at the end of the second 
round the call for him became so gen- 
eral that it was evident Major Dalton 
was looked upon as the champion rider 
of the district. Still, George persistently 
disregarded all solicitations to enter the 
ring, until some patriotic rustic, growing 
jealous of the Texan’s laurels, called 
out at the top of his voice, — 

“ Halloo, Major Dalton, you ain’t a 
goin’ to let Texis carry it over old Georgy 
in this fashion, air j^ou ? Come out, 
man, and stand up for the honor o’ your 
State.” 

Red Jacket turned a moment towards 
the speaker, then galloping across the 
field to where George sat, drew off his 
glove and cast it at his feet, amid the 
applause of the spectators. George took 
up the gauntlet. 

‘‘ There is no getting out of it now,” 
he said, turning to his companion ; “ so 
give me your colors, Ruth.” And before 
she knew what he was about he had 
taken a small netted scarf of white and 
blue that had fiillen from her shoulders 
and bound it on his arm *, then, seizing 
some white roses that lay scattered on 
her lap, he placed one in his button- 
hole, and with the other decorated the 
head of Hero, his favorite saddle-horse, 
that Audley had ridden from the White 
House. 

“ What knight shall I announce?” in- 
quired the herald, a minute after, as the 
new combatant prepared to enter the 
lists. George, who had never thought 
of a title, hesitated a moment, then, 
seizing a small Confederate flag that 
hung over the entrance, announced him- 
self as “ Knight of the Southern Cross,” 
— and dashed into the lists waving the 
popular emblem over his head. He was 
dressed in full regimentals, and, as he 
galloped through the ring on the splendid 
charger that he sat so gracefully, he 
certainly did appear as gallant and well- 
favored a knight as ever set foot in 
stirrup. The populace is always capti- 
vated by good looks, and George’s great 
personal popularity, combined with the 


national prejudice in favor of the character 
he had assumed, and which, it was well 
known, he had nobly sustained in other 
than nymic combats, established him at 
once as the popular favorite, and he was 
received with shouts of applause that 
made the welkin ring. At the end of the 
preliminary course George halted a mo- 
ment and waved his hat at the cheering 
multitude while the bars were being ad- 
justed, then, taking the flag in his bridle- 
hand and seizing a lance in the other, he 
made his first round, clearing every bar 
and carrying every ring. Red Jacket did 
the same, and at the end of the three 
rounds there was a tie between them. 
The bars were then elevated to four feet ; 
but with the same result: both steeds 
went vaulting over them as stags, and 
nine rings clicked upon the lance of each 
knight as he halted before the judge’s 
stand. The excitement had now become 
intense. High stakes were bet, and each 
knight was cheered vociferouvsly as he 
rode through the lists. At the third trial 
the'time for running the tilt was shortened 
by ten seconds. Red Jacket’s turn came 
first ; he sped through the ring like a 
meteor, and two seconds of the allotted 
time were still to elapse when he reined 
in his steed and flung his nine rings at 
the judge’s feet. The spectators were 
enthusiastic. Some people say that even 
Julian Harfleur was seen to clap his 
hands like a school-boy, while old George 
Bruen swore by the biggest oath he 
could muster that let Red Jacket do 
what he would, George Dalton could beat 
the devil himself on horseback. 

George was now the object of universal 
attention, and every eye was fixed upon 
him, Avondering how long this splendid 
contest would endure. Instead of pro- 
ceeding directly to the ring when his 
turn came, George was observed to ride 
up to where the two Miss Ilarfleurs sat 
and address some query to the elder 
sister. She ansAvered with a shake of 
the head, Avhereupon George turned aAvay 
Avith a look of disappointment and spurred 
his horse into the course; but instead of 
taking the rings, he gave each one a tap 
on the outer rim as he passed that 
knocked it from the pole, and in two 
seconds less time than Red Jacket had 
taken flung his empty lance at the 
judge’s feet in token that he gave up the 
contest. This Amluntary defeat inspired 
as much enthusiasm as Red Jacket’s vic- 
tory, and George Avas still the hero of the 
day though he resigned its honors to his 
rival. 


A SUSPICIOUS CHARACTER. 


101 


And now the interesting moment has ar- 
rived when the Queen of Love and Beauty 
is to be crowned, and every woman’s 
heart flutters with expectation while Red 
Jacket passes slowly round the circle of 
spectators as if he took pleasure in tanta- 
lizing the eager fair ones. At last he 
halts beside the brett where the Ilarfleur 
sisters are seated. lie hesitates a mo- 
ment, for the gallant Texan is undecided 
whether he shall courteously crown the 
lady of the knight who had so generously 
resigned the victory to him, or whether 
he shall place it upon the brow of her 
whose more showy beauty has made a 
deeper impression upon his own uncul- 
tured fancy. For when poor Red Jacket 
threw down the gauntlet to George he 
had stood full under the fire of Claude’s 
splendid eyes, and the first glance had 
conquered him. He wavered a moment 
between the two, when he met Claude’s 
gaze a second time, and it was all over 
with him. He lowered his lance and laid 
the crown at her feet. Claude smiled and 
graciously extended her hand to the 
gallant stranger, who sprang from his 
horse and led her, amid the cheers of the 
multitude, to her flowery throne. 

Just three weeks from that day the 
brave Texan lay on the frozen sod of 
Virginia, with the sleet falling on his up- 
turned face and a clot of gore protruding 
from his breast. 


CHAPTER XXII. 

A SUSPICIOUS CHARACTER. 

The coronation passed off brilliantly. 
Never had Claude appeared more beauti- 
ful, and the graceful little speech in 
which she thanked Red Jacket for the 
honor conferred upon her was a model 
of appropriateness and elegance ; the 
more so, as nobody knew that she had 
been learning it by heart these three 
weeks, in anticipation of the occasion. 
Americans never miss an opportunity for 
speech-making, so, after the queen, the 
orator of the day aired himself again ; 
then the marshal was called upon, and 
delivered himself of a great deal of bad 
grammar in praise of the ladies. The 
more prominent knights were also called 
out to contribute their share to the gen- 
eral palaver, a requisition which George 
escaped by presenting his friend Mal- 


vern, much to the surprise of that young 
gentleman, who suddenly found himself, 
without an^ rhyme or reason, over- 
whelmed with cheers and plaudits, and 
vociferously called upon for a speech. 
Audley had not the least idea in the 
world, no more than the people them- 
selves, why they wanted to hear him, or 
what he was expected to say, but, seeing 
that George had already made good his 
retreat, and that public attention was 
centred upon himself, he felt an awkward 
conviction that his position was an ex- 
tremely absurd one, unless he did some- 
thing to justify the public expectation ; 
so, with the readiness and grace that 
never forsook him, he stepped forward 
and extemporized such a pretty little 
speech that, as George declared after- 
wards, you really would have thought 
there was something in it if you hadn’t 
listened too closely. 

The crowd seemed at a loss whom to 
call upon next, till some one happened to 
catch sight of Mr. Bruen as he leaned 
from his carriage-window the better to 
contemplate his niece, and pounced upon 
him ; but at the end of halt a dozen sen- 
tences the old gentleman stranded upon 
'a heap of expletives not quite fit for ears 
polite, and, unable to proceed without 
his habitual mode of expression, floun- 
dered about hopelessly for a few seconds, 
then saved himself by abruptly proposing 
“three cheers for Jeff Davis,” and making 
off under cover of the noise. Mr. Har- 
fleur was called out next, for, although 
by no means a popular man, the public 
appetite for declamation was not yet 
appeased, and, as speeches had been 
squeezed out of everybody else that there 
was the smallest pretext for •calling upon, 
he was for the nonce invested with a cer- 
tain reflected popularity, as the father of 
the beautiful queen, and called to the 
stand as lustily as if he had been George 
Washington or Robert E. Lee. Mr. 
Ilarfleur expressed, himself with ease 
and grace, but there was an air of con- 
descension about him not likely to capti- 
vate a republican audience. 

As Mr. Harfleur ascended the stand, 
Audley noticed a face in the crowd that 
seemed to observe him with peculiar at- 
tention. There was something sinister 
in the expression with which it watched 
the speaker, and a fierce, unnatural lustre 
gleamed in the dark-blue eyes, so singu- 
larly bright and piercing. It seemed to 
Audley that he had seen that face some- 
where before : it was a countenance not 
likely to be easily forgotten, but he could 


102 


A FAMILY SECRET, 


not locate the vague, undefined associa- 
tion it awakened in his mind. The 
stranger was too much absorbed in 
watching Mr. Ilarfleur to be aAvare of 
the scrutiny he was himself undergoing, 
so that Audley had ample leisure to con- 
template his person. lie was meanly 
dressed, with a slouchy hat drawn down 
over his forehead, and at the first glance 
appeared like an ordinary backwoods 
“cracker,” but closer observation re- 
vealed something in his bearing strangely 
out of keeping with this mean exterior. 

Suddenly, while Audley was watching 
him, the whole expression of the man’s 
face changed, and instead of the covert, 
sinister gaze, there blazed forth a look of 
open hatred so intense and bitter that no 
w'ords can describe it. Audley turned 
and followed the direction of the stran- 
ger’s eyes, to see what it was that had so 
wrought upon him. Mr. Harfleur had 
just finished his address, and turned to 
leave the stand, and in doing so his eyes 
encountered those of the stranger. For 
a moment the sight seemed to turn him 
to stone ; he stood riveted to the spot, 
Avith his eyes fixed in a glassy stare, like 
one paralyzed by sudden fear. His face 
became livid in its paleness, the cold per- 
spiration oozed through his bloodless skin, 
and stood in great, beadlike drops upon 
his forehead. Those on the stand Avith 
him perceived that something was amiss, 
and hastened to his assistance ; A\^here- 
upon the iron man recovered himself 
AA'ith a powerful effort, and AA^aved them 
courteously aside. 

“ It is only a momentary faintness,” 
he said, with a frigid smile. “ My lungs 
were never strong, and the exertion of 
speaking to a large audience is apt to 
produce this effect.” 

He took a few sips from the glass of 
Avater that some one offered, and, de- 
scending from the stand, Avas soon lost in 
the crowed. 

A few minutes after, Audley observed 
signs of some unwonted commotion in 
that part of the assembly where Mr. 
Harfleur had disappeared, and Avhich 
happened, singularly enough, to be the 
quarter occupied by the loAver class of 
Avhite people. Men Avere seen collecting 
in little groups, or running excitedly to 
and fro, with menacing looks, Avhile an 
ominous murmur replaced the shouts of 
boisterous but innocent mirth Avith Avhich 
the place had resounded but a moment 
before. 

. Audley felt curious to knOAv what Avas 
going on; but as Claudes | romotion to 


the throne and George’s eA^asion of 
speech-making had left him and Ruth 
sole occupants of the brett, he could not • 
go and leave the lady alone. While he 
AA^as pondering OA^er the indications al- 
ready noticed, the confusion had become 
general, and suddenly the alarm was 
given, — “ A spy ! a spy ! a Yankee spy !” 
folloAved by a universal rush of the 
croAvd, like a pack of hounds Avhen the 
game is up, toAvards the quarter AA^here 
Audley had seen the stranger AA^hose 
presence so overcame Mr. Harfleur. At 
the same moment that gentleman, look- 
ing very pale, but calm and self-possessed, 
sloAvly approached the brett, and, resting 
his right arm on the rim of one of the 
hind Avheels, stood Avatching his daugh- 
ter’s face with a jealous but furtive 
scrutiny. 

Very soon the hue and cry changed to 
a shout of ferocious triumph, and a file 
of volunteers, headed by Major Maelstrom 
and several of the knights, entered the 
arena leading a man Avith his hands 
bound behind him and a halter round 
his neck, while the rabble, — that fickle, 
many-headed monster thing,” — equally 
intent upon a spectacle, Avhether of a 
tournament or a hanging, greedily clam- 
ored for the immediate death of the 
victim. The procession passed close by 
where Audley was sitting on its Avay to 
the place of execution, so that he had a 
full view of the captive, in whom he noAV 
recognized at once the object of Mr. Ilar- 
fleur’s recent agitation and the suspicious 
fellow-traveler whom he had lost sight 
of somewhere on his journey to South 
Ambury. 

Mr. Ilarfleur made a movement as if 
to place himself in the rear of the vehicle 
Avhen he saw the captive approaching. 
But if his design Avas to escape observa- 
tion he was too late -, the quick eye of the 
stranger detected him and fastened itself 
upon his face. Mr. Harfleur, as though 
disdaining to retreat in the face of the 
enemy, retraced the backward step he had 
made, and a look of fierce defiance passed 
betAveen the tAvo as the condemned man 
strode proudly on to meet his doom. 
Audley Avas struck Avith the dignity of 
his aspect and the unflinching courage 
Avith which he faced the horrors of his 
situation. There Avas something almost 
sublime in the air of cool contempt Avith 
which he surveyed the hooting rabble at 
his heels, like a lion beset by jackals, 
Avasting neither anger nor entreaties 
upon them. He did not look like a 
felon, in spite of the fetters and the 


A SUSPICIOUS CHARACTER. 


103 


halter and the beggarly garb that envel- 
oped him. 

Ruth felt a natural inclination to shrink 
away from this scene of tumult and vio- 
lence ; but as her eyes wandered a moment 
towards the captive’s face, they suddenly 
riveted themselves there with a terrible 
fascination, for in him she recognized the 
mysterious being who had so alarmed her 
in the church-yard. Audley, observing the 
change in her countenance, thought she 
was frightened at the mob, and proposed to 
lead her away to some quieter spot, when, 
suddenly rousing herself with a woman’s 
native impulse to take the part of the un- 
fortunate, without questioning as to his 
innocence or guilt, she seized her com- 
panion’s arm, and cried, in a voice of 
earnest entreaty, — 

Oh, Colonel Malvern, save the poor 
wretch, — don’t, don’t let them hang him !” 

The captive heard, and fixed upon her 
a look that thrilled Audley’ s very soul. 
Mr. Ilarfieur heard, too, and turned his 
flashing eyes upon her : but it wms like 
the flashing of a deadly bolt. Audley 
started, — a strange, undefinable sensation 
came over him. He hardly knew wdiat 
he thought. He dared not interpret what 
he seemed to read in the faces of those 
two men ; but from that moment he felt 
that the prisoner must not die then and 
there ; and, with a chivalrous disposition 
on his own part to befriend the weaker 
side, he plunged into the crowd deter- 
mined if possible to save — at all events to 
respite — the captive. 

As soon as he was gone, Mr. Ilarfieur 
turned upon Ruth with the air of a tiger 
seizing its prey. 

‘‘You have seen him before, and you 
lied about the ring,” he whispered, in a 
voice fairly hissing with rage ; and, clutch- 
ing her arm in a grip that left the print 
of his iron fingers on its ivory whiteness, 
he glared upon her with the scowl of an 
avenging demon. 

The mention of the ring brought back 
to Ruth’s mind her strange adventure in 
the church-yard, and filled her with a tu- 
mult of emotions. Who could this man 
be, and what did it all mean ? she vainly 
asked herself, and stared into her father’s 
face with a look of blank terror and con- 
fusion. Her agitation seemed to confirm 
Mr. Ilarfieur’ s suspicions, whatever they 
were. His grip tightened on her arm till 
she fairly writhed with pain. 

“ You are plotting my destruction,” he 
hissed, between his clinched teeth ; “ but it 
shall be turned upon your own head.” 
And then, giving her arm a wrench as 


though he could have torn her limb from 
limb, he dashed her from him, and 
hurried away to join the crowd that went 
streaming out to the place of execution. 

The prisoner, in the mean time, had 
been conducted a little way into the 
forest, out of respect to the nerves of the 
ladies, who might well be supposed averse 
to witnessing such a scene. The tall 
shafts of the pines afibrded no low, strong 
branches suitable for the business in hand, 
so it was necessary to construct a gallows 
for the occasion, and — alas for chivalry ! — 
the same poles at which knightly lances 
had been tilting not an hour before were 
hastily grubbed up and devoted to this 
ignominious service. 

Major Maelstrom, who seemed to be the 
leading spirit in this summary adminis- 
tration of the laws of w\ar, having dis- 
patched several of the guard to see about 
putting up the gallows, volunteered him- 
self to answer for the prisoner’s safety, 
and, in his zeal for the public service, 
cocked a pistol and clapped it to the vic- 
tim’s temple, exclaiming, as he did so, — 

“Now, Yank, budge an inch, and I’ll 
blow^ your brains out.” 

The prisoner moved not a muscle, nor 
did his countenance betray the smallest 
trepidation as, cocking his eye at the zeal- 
ous custodian with a half-humorous ex- 
pression, he said, quietly, — 

“ Then, friend, you may just bet your 
bottom dollar I ain’t going to budge.” 

A murmur of applause ran through 
the crowd at this exhibition of cool au- 
dacity, and the major drew back dum- 
founded. 

“ Why, Yank,” he cried, with enthusi- 
asm, “you behave like a Christian and a 
gentleman, and I’ll be dogged if I like 
to see a man hanged that can face the 
music like that and he uncocked the 
pistol and put it back in his pocket. 

“Look’ee here, boys,” continued the 
major, addressing himself to the crowd, 
“ I say hanging’s too rascally an end for 
a brave fellow like this, I don’t care w^here 
he comes from. It’s good enough for the 
common run of Yankees, like Sherman’s 
robbers, and be d — d to ’em, but this 
chap’s got real Southern pluck in him, 
somehow, though he does carry it under 
a Yankee skin, and so I say, no dog’s 
death for him, but let him be shot like 
a Christian and a gentleman.” 

A sardonic smile played over the pris- 
oner’s features as the crowd murmured 
assent to this benevolent proposition. 
There were some few malcontents, like 
our friend Jim Chance, who did not like 


104 


A FAMILY SECRET, 


to be cheated of a show ; but, after all, 
a shooting is almost as good as a hang- 
ing, and so the fusillade was unani- 
mously agreed upon, when public expec- 
tation was again delayed by interference 
from an unlooked-for quarter. Mr. 
Bruen, though professedly the most vol- 
canic of “ fire-eaters,” and an open advo- 
cate of unheard-of barbarities towards 
the whole Yankee nation, individually 
and collectively, was at bottom mild and 
tender as a woman, and his actions gave 
the lie flatly to his words. While con- 
stantly declaring that our people ought 
to raise the black flag and kill every 
Yankee devil they could lay hands on 
like a dog, now that a supposed Yankee 
spy was about to be executed under his 
very eyes he was the first man to inter- 
fere in the prisoners behalf. 

“Gentlemen,” he began, with a pre- 
cision of utterance that contrasted singu- 
larly both with the arbitrary violence of 
the mob and with his own usual impet- 
uosity, “ has it been proved that this per- 
son is a spy ?” 

Mr. Bruen had studied law a little in 
his youth, and was fond of airing his 
knowledge on grave occasions ; but the 
people were in no temper to hear the dic- 
tates of law and order, and a rude voice 
from the crowd broke out in reply, — 

“ Proof, — who wants any proof against 
a d — d Yankee spy? Let him swing, 
just for belonging to their cussed nation ; 
and if that don’t suit you, maybe we can 
find him company.” 

“Gentlemen,” continued Mr. Bruen, 
unintimidated by the covert menace, “do 
you know that in the eye of the law 

“ Look’ee here, mister,” interrupted 
another voice from the crowd, “ these 
here is war times, and your law is done 
played out. All the law I wants is one 
to hang every d — d Yankee scoundrel 
you can catch.” 

“ Are you sure you have even caught 
a Yankee this'time, friend?” asked the 
prisoner, in a voice which certainly did 
not betray the slightest trace of the 
Northern accent. 

“Don’t want to be sure,” growled the 
boor, who seemed to regard as a personal 
injury every suggestion that threatened 
to interrupt or delay the spectacle. “ All 
I wants is to see the rascal swing. If 
you’ve got to stop and prove that every 
Yankee scoundrel you catches is a Yan- 
kee, how many of ’em do you reckon ’ll 
git their dues?” 

“ In the eye of the law,” persisted Mr. 
Bruen, not heeding the interruption, “to 


put a man to death on insufficient evi- 
dence is murder, and unless there are 
witnesses ” 

“ Hold your tongue, old scalawag,” 
cried a pert young lieutenant of con- 
scripts, whose breeding seemed far behind 
his rank, small as the' latter was, “ or 
you’ll have the privilege of dancing the 
tight-rope yourself before long ; you are 
mighty ” 

He was interrupted by a sturdy grip at 
his throat. 

“ Hold your tongue yourself, you in- 
fernal scoundrel !” cried an angry voice in 
his ear ; “and the next time you presume 
to insult an old gentleman, make sure he 
has no grown-up sons or nephews at 
hand to defend him.” And with that, 
George Dalton’s powerful arm felled the 
miscreant to the earth, and pommeled 
him till he roared for mercy, old George 
Bruen looking on the while and encour- 
aging his nephew with might and main. 

“ That’s right; pitch into him, George, 
my boy,” cried the old gentleman at the 
top of his voice. “ I’d give him a kick 
myself if two to one wasn’t unfair — ha ! 
ha ! — the scoundrel I” 

It threatened, however, to become two 
to one the other way, for a party of con- 
scripts belonging to the lieutenant’s com- 
pany, animated by that esprit de corps 
which belongs to men of every calling 
and every caste, advanced to the rescue 
of their officer. But George was too 
popular with all classes not to find plenty 
of “ backers.” Several of the knights 
who had just tilted against him, accom- 
panied by stray volunteers who had served 
under him in the army, came forward to 
meet the “’scripts,” as they contemptu- 
ously termed their adversaries, and the 
chivalric exercises of the day bade fair 
to end in a vulgar when Audley 

Malvern interposed, and restored order. 
His indescribable charm of manner, aided 
by the splints and bandages, which in 
those days were a sure title to popular 
f^A’or, won him a respectful hearing, 
where many a man of equal merit would 
not have ventured to open his lips. 

“ Boys,” he said, using the old, familiar 
title that soldiers love, as he pushed boldly 
in among the combatants, “ can you find 
nothing better to do than destroy each 
other, when the common enemy is thun- 
dering at your veiy door and insulting 
you on your own soil ? Southern hands 
should be slow to draw Southern blood 
now, when every drop is precious, is 
essential to your country’s life.” 

The men, who had not been maddened 


A SUSPICIOUS CHARACTER, 


105 


* 

yet by actual blows, fell peacefully back 
on either side as the handsome young 
officer made his way among them ; wffiile 
George, having taken his satisfaction out 
of the pert lieutenant, dismissed him with- 
out further bruising, after having exacted 
a public apology to his uncle. Then, 
taking the old gentleman on his arm, 
George turned him about, facing the 
crowd, and said, — 

“ Now, uncle, say just what you please, 
and I’d like to see the rascal that shall 
dare to interrupt you.” 

There is something in good, honest, 
knock-down pluck that always commands 
the respect of the multitude, and no one 
ventured to gainsay the young officer who 
stood up so manfully for his aged kinsman. 
The people waited in respectful silence, 
which was broken by the same voice that 
had first so rudely interrupted Mr. Bruen. 

“ Bully for you. Major Dalton !” cried 
the voice in a tone of sturdy approbation. 

Let the old ’un fire away now, if he’s 
got anything on his mind, and I’ll back 
him myself, — ding me if I don’t!” 

But Mr. Bruen had taken in high dud- 
geon the insults put upon him, and would 
not condescend to avail himself of the 
hearing George had gained him. 

“ You are all a set of lawless scoundrels, 
and ITl be d — d if I cast my pearls 
before any such swine I” replied this 
modern Coriolanus, with an angry gesture ; 
and, turning his back on the astonished 
multitude, he stalked away in offended 
dignity to his carriage. Audley imme- 
diately stepped into the place he had va- 
cated at George’s side. 

“Gentlemen,” he began, taking off* his 
hat, and bowing composedly to the tur- 
bulent assembly, “ since one better qual- 
ified has declined to speak, I trust you 
will allow me to say a few words in be- 
half of the prisoner. You will not, I am 
sure, mistake my motive in doing so, for 
I flatter myself, if you will pardon the 
boast, that the name of Malvern is suffi- 
ciently well known, to such of you at least 
as have served in the army of the Poto- 
mac, as to leave no doubt that he who 
bears it will ever have the good of his 
country at heart.” 

This announcement of himself was re- 
ceived with a perfect storm of applause ; 
for Audley’s dashing exploits had made 
his name a watch-word among the men 
with whom he had served. AVhen the 
cheering had subsided, he continued, — 

“Well, my countrymen, since you are 
ready to believe that I appeal to you only 
in the name of justice and humanity, I 


have no fear that words uttered in such 
a cause will not meet with due considera- 
tion from an audience of Southerners 
(cheers), however unworthy the speaker. 
I was once so near the halter myself (en- 
thusiastic cheering), that I know too well 
what a hard and cruel thing it is to con- 
demn an innocent man to so fearful and 
ignominious a fate. 

“ Now, I do not say that this person is 
innocent ; he may be a Yankee spy, or 
he may not *, we cannot tell ; for all the 
evidence we have is a vague rumor run- 
ning through the crowd, starting we know 
not where, and founded we know not 
upon what. Now, this very uncertainty 
of ours is the reason Avhy I ask you to 
delay. If he is guilty, proofs against 
him will not be wanting, rest assured ; if 
he is innocent, — and his speech certainly 
does not mark him a Yankee, — if he is 
innocent, my friends, the old gentleman 
yonder was right : we should all be mur- 
derers, and cowardly murderers to boot, 
if we put him to death ; for when did 
brave men ever avail themselves of mere 
strength of numbers against one, solitary 
and unarmed? (loud applause). In cases 
of immediate and pressing danger, we 
don’t alwa^ have time to inquire into 
matters as thoroughly as we would like, 
and military necessities are sometimes 
very cruel 5 but I see nothing about that 
fettered captive yonder so formidable as 
to call for needless haste. I think better 
of you, my countrymen, than to believe 
that you would deny justice to a man 
simply because he has not the power to 
demand it. It is not like Southerners, 
who have so nobly sustained their cause 
against odds of two, four, yes, even ten 
to one, to take advantage of a solitary 
captive when the odds are a thousand to 
one against him. Is it like Southerners 
to range themselves the strong against 
the weak ? Would it be in keeping with 
the chivalrous instincts upon which we 
pride ourselves /for a whole assembly to 
turn and make war on a single man, and 
that man unarmed and a prisoner ? No ; 
I know your generous Southern hearts 
would revolt against such meanness.” 

He was right. The Southern heart is 
sound and generous at the core ; and 
though often swayed by wild, untutored 
impulses, often led astray by vanity, and 
blinded by false flattery, it is always ready 
to unfold its better side if rightly and 
judiciously appealed to. A perfect storm 
of applause hailed Audley Malvern as he 
finished his speech ; and it was agreed on 
' all hands that the prisoner should be 


106 


A FAMILY SECRET. 


respited for the present and lodged in 
South Aniburj jail, to await a fair and 
honest trial. Everybody seemed to be 
satisfied ; for though they had been dis- 
appointed of a spectacle, had they not 
heard a speech ? And to an American 
assembly a speech is almost as good as a 
hanging. 

Everybody satisfied, did I say? No: 
there was one sorely disappointed. After 
the crowd had dispersed, a tall, proud 
form went Avandering among the pines, 
Avringing its hands and muttering discon- 
solately to itself, ‘‘Lost! lost! lost!” 


CHAPTER XXIII. 

THE TOURXAAIENT BALL. 

The Spread Eagle Hotel, South Am- 
bury, is a veiy elegant building for a 
provincial town : and its handsome draA\"- 
ing-rooms, brilliantly illuminated and 
decorated with autumn rosoe and Con- 
federate flags, presented a very attractive 
scene Avhen the beauty and fashion of 
South Ambury Avere assembled there on 
the evening of the tournament ball. The 
society of this little cotton-trading toAvn 
had become of quite a cosmopolitan char- 
acter during the Avar ; so that a stranger, 
on entering a ball-room or other fashion- 
able assembly, might haA^e supposed him- 
self, from the style and elegance that 
pervaded it, in the most favored circles 
of some great social metropolis. There 
were the Avives and daughters of men Avho 
had been ambassadors and cabinet minis- 
ters, of major-generals, admirals, and 
commodores, while the refugee aristocracy 
of almost every State in the rebel Con- 
federacy was represented by some of its 
proudest and most distinguished mem- 
iDers. 

The toilettes of the ladies, too, notAvith- 
standing the rigors of the blockade, would 
have done credit to any assembly, so 
Avonderful are the resources of feminine 
ingenuity when applied to that darling 
object of every woman’s ambition— dress. 
There were satins and A^elvets that had 
figured at court-balls ten years ago, “done 
over,” and looking as fresh, by lamp-light, 
as if just imported from Paris. There 
Avere jewels that had passed through 
more adventures than the famous diamond 


necklace of Marie Antoinette, and laces 
Avhose history Avas a romance. 

Claude Ilarfleur’s dress Avas by far the 
most elegant and costly in the room, and 
AA^ould, perhaps, have been considered out 
of taste for so 3 "Oung a person in any but 
American societ^n Resplendent in rose- 
colored satin and point lace, and fairly 
ablaze Avith jewels, she dazzled all e3^es 
as she entered the ball-room, and seemed 
to illuminate the space about her Avith 
irradiations of her OAvn glory. 

But dazzling as Claude appeared, she 
did not Avholly eclipse the more graceful, 
if less shoAA^y, charms of her sister. • ljuth 
was not attired in the conventional robe 
of “ simple white,” in which the good 
girls in novels, especially the blondes, — 
poor things ! — have to do all their cam- 
paigning, but her toilette — though one of 
the least expensive — AA'as nevertheless 
the most striking and artistic in the room. 
It Avas of pale-green tarlatan — the most 
difficult of all colors to carry well — 
trimmed with a perfect foam of little 
ruffles and ruches, and dotted all over 
Avith Avhite marguerites., like a patch of 
green meadow starred with daisies. Ruth, 
unlike her younger sister, had never had 
much command of money ; but the ex- 
quisite taste in dress, which was partly 
natural to her, partly cultivated by her 
intercourse with the Creole population 
of NeAV Orleans, more than supplied its 
place. There AA^as something in the Avay 
she pinned on a boAV or a flower ; some- 
thing in the set of every seam and the 
flow of every fold in her garments, aided 
no doubt by the exquisite symmetry of 
her form, that had a style and grace 
peculiarly its own. 

As Audley Malvern Avatched her enter 
the ball-room, leaning on George Dalton’s 
arm, he Avas more struck with her ap- 
pearance than he had ever been before. 
She Avas indeed, as he had said before, 
none of your commonplace beauties, made 
up of a little pink and Avhite set off Avith 
a pair of bright eyes and a croAAm of silky 
curls, but something to be studied, like a 
fine painting or statue ; and each fresh 
survey revealed some neAv charm, till he 
seemed to discover in her all the perfec- 
tions of the old masters combined. In 
certain lights her golden blonde hair 
emitted a kind of radiance like a halo ; 
and then she reminded him of a Madonna 
of Perugino’s that he had seen at Venice, 
while the mingled look of majesty and 
SAveetness in ihQ pose of the head and cut 
of the features called to mind the Venus 
of Milo. And then that exquisite teilette ! 


THE TOURNAMENT BALL. 


107 


that lovely little glimpe of green meadow 
starred with daisies, so unique and so 
becoming, how it did set off and complete 
all the rest ! Ah, how man}^ men, I 
wonder, ever suspect how much a strip 
of lace or a rag of tarlatan has to do with 
the fate of their lives ! 

Audley had resigned Claude to her 
knight after the coivonation, and, having 
now no special claims upon his attention, 
he wandered through the rooms to amuse 
himself at leisure in observing the crowd, 
always keeping in view, however, the\ 
form that so wrought upon his imagina- 
tion.. Nor was he the only person whose 
attention seemed attracted in that direc- 
tion. From various disconnected scraps 
of conversation that reached his ear as he 
strolled about from group to group, Aud- 
ley gathered that Miss Harfleur was the 
subject of universal comment. 

“ That tall, elegant blonde is the other 
sister, I suppose?” said a voice close be- 
hind him. 

A soft feminine whisper replied, “Yes; 
very handsome, isn’t she ? but so haughty 
and full of airs !” 

“ Haughty !” exclaimed a third voice, — 
probably that of a matron with daughters, 
from its tone, — “ she’d better not try any- 
thing of that sort, or she’ll start people to 
making reflections.” 

The band here set up a furious clangor 
that drowned all other sounds for the 
next five minutes. The first thing Aud- 
ley heard when it subsided was the voice 
of Mrs. Moidore Marmaduke, one of the 
leaders of South Ambury society, address- 
ing a gentleman with whom she was prom- 
enading. 

“Yes, very handsome, as you say, Mr. 
Softalk,” observed Mrs. Marmaduke, 
“ but there’s something about her I can’t 
admire ; she’s too theatrical and Frenchy. 
They do say she ran away once to join an 
opera troupe, and made several public 
performances.” Mrs. Marmaduke shud- 
dered at the idea. 

“ I am told she has a divine voice,” said 
the gentleman; “did you ever hear her 
sing ?’^ 

“ Yes, her voice is superb, but too pro- 
fessional. Why, if you weren’t told betto" 
you might think it was Patti, or Ristori, 
or any of those public singers.” Mrs. 
Marmaduke passed on, but the next 
couple that came along were pursuing 
the same theme. 

“ Where have they kept her hid all this 
time?” mquired a deep bass voice. 

“ Off in some convent, I believe,” re- 
plied a shrill feminine treble ; “ but the 


priests wanted to make money out of her, 
they say, and sold her to an opera troupe. 
The family got wind of it somehow, and 
had to bring her home for safe-keeping ; 
it wouldn’t do for her to be flimous, you 
know.” 

“ Partners for the Lancers !” shouted 
the stentorian voice of the floor-manager ; 
and in the rush for places Audley lost 
sight of this interesting couple. 

As the dancers now took possession of 
the floor he was forced to back against the 
wall, Avhere the plain girls and the old 
dowagers sit, waiting, the former for 
partners, the latter for supper. lie was 
forced by the crush to stand for some time 
near a group of three worthy matrons, 
sitting with their heads close together, as 
if discussing some rare bit of scandal. 

“ Major Dalton’s very attentive to her,” 
said one; “they say he is going to marry 
her.” 

“Impossible!” cried her right-hand 
neighbor, a sharp-nosed, wiry little wo- 
man who had a marriageable daughter of 
her own. “The family would never con- 
sent to it, and besides, it’s all settled that 
he’s to marry Claude.” 

“Ah, but George Dalton,” returned 
the . first speaker, “ isn’t the man to ask 
anybody’s consent when he once sets his 
head on a thing: and as for Claude, she’s 
to marry that French count she met in 
Richmond.” 

“ Count, indeed ! some no-account, 
you’d better say,” put in number three, 
a stout, comfortable-looking lady with fat 
red cheeks and a double chin. “George 
Dalton knows which side of his bread is 
buttered, you’d better believe. Ilis father 
left him as poor as a rat, and he hasn’t 
got it in him ever to make a cent beyond 
what his uncle gives him, and George 
Bruen Avould disinherit him outright be- 
fore he’d let him marry that girl, I know.” 

“ Yes, indeed,” protested number two ; 
“why, do you know, that young man 
Malvern that brought her home came 
here on purpose to marry her, they say ; 

but when he heard ” Here the three 

heads went so close together that the sharp 
nose almost dipped into the double chin, 
and the voices sank for some minutes into 
an inaudible whisper. When the three 
heads separated the ladies remained silent 
for a few seconds, looking most deliciously 
scandalized, and their eyes wandered to- 
Avards Ruth. 

“And she hasn’t a red cent to bless 
herself Avith,” continued the sharp-nosed 
matron, after a close inspection of the 
subject of this amiable conversation. 


108 


A FAMILY SECRET, 


Her cfrandfather left everything to 
Julian Ilarfleur’s children, they say, and 
made no provision for her, except some 
trifle that he left in trust to his brother 
to be used in hushing up by-gones and 
keeping her out of the way. George 
Dalton marry her, indeed!” 

“But you know how eccentric he is,” 
persisted the retailer of this bit of news, 
loath to be deprived of her stock in trade. 
“ lie is the very man to take up with 
some girl that nobody in his senses would 
ever dream of.” 

Somehow the words of these idle gossips 
made Audley feel uncomfortable. He 
knew that a great deal they had said was 
false, but what was the meaning of all 
this mystery and scandal that people 
seemed to connect with Ruth’s name? 
And then George Dalton, — what if 
he had really had taken a fancy to the 
girl? Why doej? Audley turn so pale at 
the thought? Was Ruth ITarfleur any- 
thing to him, “ a girl that no man in his 
senses would ever dream of”? He smiled 
contemptuously, and directed his eyes 
across the room to where Ruth w^as stand- 
ing. She was near a window, with her 
face partially turned from him, and the 
light from a large chandelier fell full 
upon her features, so that their pure, 
statuesque outline was clearly defined 
against the dark drapery in the back- 
ground. Audley was almost startled at 
the impression her beauty made upon 
him. He stood a long time gazing at her, 
unable to remove his eyes from her face, 
then at last withdrawing them by a 
sudden effort, he turned away and hurried 
into another room. 

“ The next set is ours, I believe. Miss 
Harfleur,” he said, offering his arm to 
Claude as she withdrew, flushed and 
panting, from a furious valse d deux 
temps. He knew it was not, but then 
the handsome rascal felt perfectly sure 
that Claude would break any other en- 
gagement to dance with him, and he was 
not mistaken. 

“Excuse me, Captain Warwick,” she 
said, turning to a young officer who had 
been lying in wait to seize her as soon as 
the deux temps was over. “ I had for- 
gotten, when I promised you this danc<^, 
that I was already engaged to Colonel 
Malvern.” And Warwick, who had a 
strong suspicion of the mensonge^ with- 
drew to console himself, along with other 
disappointed aspirants for that same 
dance, at the punch-bowi in the corridor. 

“ How^ dreadfully that creature danced 1 
I am ready to suffocate,” said Claude, 


leaning a trifle more heavily on the arm 
of her companion than was, perhaps, 
altogether necessary. There were no such 
things as ices in those days of Southern 
independence, so Audley offered her a 
lemonade, and then led her aw^ay into 
the recess of a window. 

“You will find it cooler here,” he said, 
drawing aside the curtain, “ and w^e are 
out of the crush, too.” 

Claude leaned forvrard to drink in the 
fresh air, and as she did so, a pink moss- 
rose-bud that she wore in her bosom 
dropped from its place and fell upon 
Audley’s hand. 

“Generous little flower,” he said, re- 
garding it with a tender smile. “ I wish 
I dared, regard you as a propitious omen.” 
He took it up and touched it to his lips, 
then drawing from his breast-pocket a 
little note-book, the repository of all his 
souvenirs^ he scribbled something upon a 
blank leaf, and laid the rose-bud on it. 
As he did so something slipped from be- 
tween two other leaves, and fell, unper- 
ceived by him. upon the floor. Claude 
stooped and picked it up. A sudden 
pallor overspread her features, and she 
thrust what she had found hastily into 
her bosom. It w^as all done in a moment, 
and when Audley raised his eyes she was 
toying carelessly with her fan, and her 
face w^as like the sunny side of a ripe 
peach . 

“Now, I insist upon seeing what you 
hate wu’itten there,” she said, playfully, 
detaining his hand, as he was about re- 
turning the little book to his pocket. 
“ I can’t give you my rose-bud for noth- 
ing, and I demand in payment to have 
my curiosity gratified.” 

“ And I, like the poor debtor, must 
crave time to pay,” returned Audley, in 
a voice full of tender insinuation. 

“ How^ long ?” 

“ I cannot tell ; it rests wdth you to say 
if I may ever dare to reveal what is 
wu’itten here.” And he struck the little 
book against his heart with an air of 
double meaning that deepened the hue 
upon Claude’s cheek. 

Her changing color and drooping eye- 
lids did not escape Audley. He felt that 
the situation was becoming serious, and he 
w^as not ready for that yet. He intended, 
in a general w\ay, to marry and settle 
down some day, and Claude seemed to an- 
swer all his requirements as to family, for- 
tune, person, etc., and he liked her as well 
as any woman wdiom he had contemplated 
from a business point of view^, as he ir- 
reverently termed his matrimonial spec- 


THE TOURNAMENT BALL, 


100 


ulations. Still, he shrank from irrevoca- 
bly committing himself, and felt half 
provoked at having carried his tender 
fooling so far. Just then, as he was 
casting about for some way of retreat, 
the music came to his relief. 

Don’t forget. Miss Harfleur,” he 
said, as the band broke out afresh, “ that 
you have promised me the honor of your 
hand for this dance.” And the next min- 
ute thej^were gliding through the intri- 
cate mazes of the stately and beautiful 
Prince Imperial Quadrille, just then im- 
ported from France. 

In the mean time, Ruth was standing 
her trial at the bar of South Ambury 
society. Though the criticisms of the 
ladies that Audley had overheard were 
not particularly favorable, beauty will 
always exert its sway over the other 
sex, and there were men enough eager 
to secure so graceful a partner. But 
Ruth persistently refused to dance, and 
betrayed an absence and preoccupation 
of manner that seemed like rudeness to 
the gay cavaliers, ignorant as they were 
of the painful scenes through which she 
had that day passed. It was in vain 
she tried to shake off the influence that 
oppressed her and join in the general 
festivity. Through all the light and 
glitter she was haunted by visions of 
that mysterious form, rising before her 
like a ghost, in the shadow of her moth- 
er’s tomb, or turning to look at her so 
strangely as it moved along amid the 
hooting rabble to meet its death. The 
blaze of the chandeliers seemed to pale 
before the memory of the fierce, wild 
glare of her fathers eyes, and she 
seemed still to feel his angry grip on 
her arm, and to hear ringing above the 
sound of music and dancing those inex- 
plicable words, “ You are plotting my 
destruction, but it shall be turned upon 
your own head.” She had been averse 
to attending the ball, but could not avoid 
it Avithout exciting remarks, so she did 
her best to collect her thoughts and make 
herself agreeable to those who were kind 
enough to seek her acquaintance ; but 
she either talked at random or forgot to 
talk at all, so that the general verdict of 
the men was, “ handsome, but nothing in 
her.” 

As she would neither dance nor talk, 
her admirers gradually dropped off, till 
finally she was left alone with a very 
young gentleman named Briggs, who 
felt bound to stay for politeness’ sake. 
Of all the burdens society imposes upon 
rational women, the awful expedient of 


“making talk,” especially to very young 
gentlemen, is one of the hardest, and 
poor Ruth felt herself almost at the 
verge of desperation, exchanging plati- 
tudes with Mr. Briggs, when Colonel 
Malvern, having finished his quadrille 
with Claude, stepped up and asked her 
for a waltz. Briggs seized the chance 
and made his escape out of hand, leaving 
the two together in a retired part of the 
room near a side door opening on a little 
balcony, from which a flight of steps led 
down into a handsome garden belonging 
to the wife of the wealthy proprietor of 
the Spread Eagle. Ruth still persisted 
in her determination not to dance, much 
to Audley’ s surprise, and regret also, 
judging from the expression of his coun- 
tenance. 

“Why, I thought you Avere very fond 
of dancing ? you told me so the other day, 
and I am sure you dance Avell ; an OrU- 
anoise always does,” he said, with an 
admiring glance at the graceful figure. 

“ Yes, I am fond of it sometimes, but 
I can’t, I don’t feel like it, to-night.” 

“ Try just one round to put yourself in 
the spirit,’^ he said, coaxingly. “There’s 
the music — a spirited gallop ; come, leave 
your Avrappings here on the table.” 

As he spoke, he lifted a fleecy scarf 
that she had carried on her arm all the 
evening, professedly as a provision against 
draughts. She gave a start, and made a 
gesture to prevent him, but too late. He 
tossed the pretty covering carelessly aside, 
and in so doing revealed the deep purple 
prints that Mr. Harfleur’ s fingers had 
left upon her arm. Ruth’s face turned 
crimson. 

“ Take me home,” she cried, in a trem- 
bling voice. “ I must go ; take me aAvay ; 
I can’t stay here any longer.” 

Audley reddened too as their eyes met. 
He had a suspicion somehoAV, he could 
not tell why, that Mr. Harfleur was re- 
sponsible for those marks, and his first 
im'pulse was to seize the poor little 
bruised arm tenderly in both his hands 
and A^ow — well, he hardly kneAV Avhat; 
but, checking himself, he hastily replaced 
the scarf, and, Avithout a word, led her 
half fainting from the room. 

George met them on the balcony as 
they were descending into the garden. 
He saAV that something vms amiss, and 
faced Audley Avith a reproachful, almost 
an angry, look. Audley appeared not to 
notice this tacit rebuke. 

“ Miss Harfleur is not Avell,” he said, 
“ and wants to go home. Is Mr. Bruen’s 
carriage at the gate?” 


110 


A FAMILY SECRET. 


“Yes, it’s waiting,” replied George. 
“You are tired early, Ruth ; but I don’t 
wonder. As Sir Cornwall Lewis says, 
‘ This AYOuld be a very pleasant world 
were it not for its amusements.’ ” And 
he gave vent to a long-suppressed yawn. 
“ Shall I find you here when I come 
back, Malvern?” he added, in an under- 
tone. 

Audley nodded assent as he reluctantly 
resigned the young lady to her cavalier. 
“ Yes, come back and take a cigar with 
me here in the garden.” 

“What is the matter, Ruth?” asked 
George, as the carriage-door closed upon 
them. 

“ Nothing — no — yes — that is, I can’t 
tell.” And neither of them spoke an- 
other word until they said ” good-night” 
at Mr. Stockdale’s door. 

Two hours later, when the revel was 
over and Claude retired to the chamber 
that she and her sister were to occupy 
together, she seated herself quietly on the 
edge of the bed where Ruth lay sleeping, 
and gazed long and earnestly at the pros- 
trate form before her. Twice her eyes 
conned slowly over the unconscious figure, 
taking careful note of every outline, of 
every feature, from the utmost fold of the 
white robe that enveloped it to the crown- 
ing wave of amber hair that floated over 
the classic forehead. Presently she rose, 
drew from her bosom a silky blonde curl, 
and laid it stealthily on her sister's head. 
There was no mistaking its identity ; the 
world could not produce another such won- 
derful texture of silk and gold. Claude 
frowned, the soft curl slid frOm her hand 
to the floor, and she stood staring at it as 
if it had been a snake. Raising her eyes 
at last, they happened to fall upon a 
mirror opposite. The cloud vanished, 
and a smile of triumph played over her 
features as she gazed upon the charms 
that had never yet failed to conquer. 
She took up the blonde curl again, — not 
with a froAvn this time, — and, flinging 
aside the flowery crown that bound her 
head, shook down her own rich masses 
of dark-brown hair, and proudly com- 
pared them with the pale amber tresses 
that shrouded her sister's head and 
shoulders like a sunlit cloud. Then, sat- 
isfied Avith the inspection, she prepared 
herself for bed, and lay down to rest 
beside her sister, to dream perchance of 
the same dark eyes that haunted Ruth’s 
slumber, and to hear again the low, 
tender voice that had unwittingly set 
many another poor heart to dreaming 
dreams from which it was destined per- 


chance to awaken some day and find 
them, as our beautiful dreams but too 
often are, only a delusion and a snare. 


CHAPTER XXIV. 

A FRIENDLY WARNING. 

George returned to the Spread Eagle, 
and joined Audley in the garden. 

“At the German already, are they?” 
he said, listening a moment to the in- 
spiriting strains that proceeded from the 
ball-room. “ So the revel is pretty Avell 
over.” 

“ Yes, but they’ve just commenced the 
closing set,” replied Audley, “and the 
German is confoundedly long, you know, 
— have another cigar.” 

George accepted the profiered Havana, 
and walked on at his friend’s side for 
some time in silence; then, after a feAV 
turns, he paused and asked, abruptly, — 

“ I say, Audley, have you been talking 
contraband to anybody to-night?'’ 

“ Well, T am afraid I came pretty near 
it,” said Audley, as he thought of the 
little scene Avith Claude in the AvindoAV ; 
“ but I backed out before any mischief 
was done,” he added, laughing. 

“Umph! I don’t knoAV about that,” 
said George, and he thought of Ruth’s 
drooping figure and melancholy air. 

“Well, even supposing I may haA^e 
committed myself a little too fiir,” re- 
plied Audley, in a half-argumentative 
tone, as if reasoning Avith himself, “ I 
don’t see that there is any very great 
harm done. A man must marry some 
day, you know, and she’s as beautiful a 
woman ” 

“ Beautiful ! ah, yes^ if that AA^ere all,” 
interrupted George; “I haA^e neA^er seen 
her match, and if called upon this minute 
to name the most perfect and faultless 
beauty I had ever^seen, I would say, be- 
yond all comparison, Ruth ” 

“Thunder!” Audley turned sharply 
round and eyed his friend. SomehoAv, 
the sudden mention of that name, in 
connection with the one that had just 
been occupying his thoughts, startled 
him, and made him feel, he could not tell 
Avhy, A^ery uncomfortable. It was seA^eral 
seconds before he recovered himself, then, 
turning to resume their Avalk, he said, in 
a bantering tone, — 


A FRIENDLY WARNING, 


111 


“Upon my word, George, I am begin- 
ning to be alarmed about you. Only the 
other night you were warning me, in 
language fearful with mystery, to beware 
of a certain young lady's fascinations, 
and now, the deuce take me if I don’t 
believe you are going to fall a victim to 
them yourself.” 

“I am afraid, Audley,” answered his 
friend, speaking very seriously, and look- 
ing him steadfastly in the face, “ that if 
there is any victim in this case it is more 
likely to be that poor girl.” 

“ You seem to have a fancy for talking 
in riddles, George, whenever Miss llar- 
fleur is the subject of conversation,” said 
Audley, impatiently. “ If you will con- 
descend to deal in plain English, so that 
a fellow of moderate intellect can see 
what you are driving at, I will endeavor 
to give you my attention.” 

“ Well, then, in plain English, I mean 
that it won’t do for you to make love to 
Ruth, as you are in the habit of doing to 
every pretty woman that comes in your 
way.” 

“And why the devil shouldn’t I make 
love to her,” asked Audley, sharply, “if 
I choose, and if she chooses?” 

“Because,” cried George, “it would be 
an infernally cruel thing to trifle with her, 
and you couldn’t possibly marry her.” 

“ Riddles again,” said Audley, shrug- 
ging his shoulders. “You’ll have to ex- 
plain yourself, George, if you want a 
commonplace fellow like me to compre- 
hend you.” 

George took oS* his hat, ran his fingers 
through his hair, replaced the hat on his 
head, stuck his hands back in his pockets, 
and began, — 

“I know, Audley, I’m not exactly the 
sort of fellow to be making moral lec- 
tures, and that sort of thing, seeing I 
don’t pretend to be above reproach on 
the moral code myself ; but you know 
I’m a man of honor for all that, and 
there are some things I can’t think right 
or honorable.” 

George paused, and commenced fum- 
bling nervously in his pockets. He felt 
rather awkward in the post of mentor to 
his brilliant companion, and did not knoAV 
exactly how to proceed. Audley gave 
him no assistance, but walked along at 
his side, -quietly puffing his cigar. 

“Well, now, you know, Audley,” he 
began, taking a fresh start, “ you are a 
devilish good-looking chap, — all your fam- 
ily are, and you all know it, too.” 

“ That means I am a conceited puppy,” 
said Audley, dryly. 


“ No, it don’t,” cried George ; “ and you 
won’t laugh, Audley, when you hear 
what I have got to say, if I ever can get 
it out,” for George knew he was right, 
though he was not used to the role of 
“ good boy,” and floundered about in it 
with much stumbling and balking. Be- 
sides, what he had to say concerned a 
lady, and his chivalrous nature found it 
hard to approach the subject with suffi- 
cient delicacy. 

“ Well ?” said Audley, interrogatively, 
as his friend came to another dead halt. 

“Well,” continued George, getting 
fairly under way this time, “you know 
you have a great way of talking love to 
the women, without meaning anything in 
particular, just because they like it, and 
it amuses you. As you are never in 
earnest yourself, you fancy they never 
are either, and so you really don’t mean 
any harm. Some hardened old stagers 
that are up to all the ways of the world 
take your pretty speeches for what they 
are worth, and there is no harm done, 
but many a poor little innocent fancies 
you are as true and loving as herself, and 
there is no telling what pangs the foolish 
little heart endures before it can make 
a final transfer of itself to some honest 
lover.!’ 

“ In other words, I am a precious cox- 
comb,” said Audley, putting a fresh cigar 
to his lips ; “ but go on.” 

“Now, you know,” continued George, 
not heeding the interruption, “the young 
lady we have been speaking of was bred 
in a convent, and is therefore not very 
likely to be up to all the ways of the 
world — especially the men in it. Now, I 
don’t want to make a puppy of you, Aud- 
ley, but from many little things I’ve no- 
ticed I’m afraid you’ve been up to some 
of your old tricks, my boy, and that she 
has taken you an s4rieuxF 

Audley colored in spite of himself, and 
his heart beat with a quicker motion. 

“ I think it is you who are taking 
things an s4rieux^ George,” he said, try- 
ing to laugh. 

George paid no attention to the retort. 
“And if she has,” he continued, with 
vehemence, “ you are doing an infernal 
heartless and cruel thing, a beastly thing, 
in winning through sheer thoughtless- 
ness, and to while away an idle moment, 
the affections of a woman whom it is im- 
possible you could ever think seriously 
of marrying.” 

Somehow George’s suspicion, foolish 
I and unfounded as it was, sent a thrill of 
‘pleasure through Audley’s frame; but 


112 


A FAMILY SECRET. 


even if it had been just, he was too much 
of a g'entleman to flatter his own vanity 
at a lady's expense. Numerous as his 
conquests were, Audley Malvern had 
never in his life been heard to boast of one. 

“Your fears do me great honor,” he 
said, “ but I am afraid honesty will com- 
pel me to confess that Miss Ilarfleur is 
not as sensible of my fascinations as you 
seem to think her. As for the matrimo- 
nial question, it is hardly possible that 
either of us should have given serious 
consideration to that, during an acquaint- 
ance that dates scarcely ten days back ; 
but noAV that you have put it into my 
head,’^ he added, “ hang me if I can see 
why a felloAV shouldn’t think seriously of 
it, if she’d let him.” 

“ But 1 see reason enough,” cried 
George, “why a man like you could not 
and would not think of such a thing for 
a minute. You remember I said some- 
thing the other night about a hend sinister 
and a halter?^'' 

“Yes ; and I think,” said Audley, shak- 
ing the ashes from his cigar, “ that I have 
made out part of your riddle.’’ 

“ What, — that she is not Harfleur’s 
daughter?” 

Audley answered with an inclination 
of the head. 

“Just so,” said George. “ She has no 
more right to the mame than you or I. 
Her real father was hanged for robbery 
and murder, and her mother was never 
legally married to him.” 

Audley gave a start. “ Hanged ! are 
you sure ?” he asked. 

“Yes, hanged; and if all accounts be 
true, a more unmitigated villain never 
mounted the gallows.” 

Audley removed his cigar from his lips, 
and watched the little rings of blue smoke 
that Avent curling up from it, till they 
vanished in the misty night air. Then 
he said, thoughtfully, — 

“ And yet, she don’t look as if she had 
vile blood in her veins.” 

“ I don’t know that she’d have any 
better if Mr. Ilarfleur was her fatl^r,” 
said George, dryly ; “ for, in my opinion,, 
he is only a scoundrel that hasn’t been 
found out.” 

“ I can’t say that I am very agreeably 
impressed with him myself,” replied 
Audley, “ but, at least, he’s a gentleman 
scoundrel ; he doesn’t look as if there Avas 
a drop of plebeian blood in him.” 

“A drop of flddlesticks !” groAAded 
George; “it’s gall and Avormwood that 
flows in his veins. Confound your arro- 
gance, Audley ! I believe you aristocratic 


Yirginians plume yourselves more upon 
your blue blood than upon those noble 
traits of mind and heart that have justly 
raised your State to such high eminence.” 

“ The one is but the natural offspring of 
the other,” said Malvern, proudly; “but 
come, tell me about this little family ro- 
mance. I hope I haven’t played the deuce 
in taking upon myself to appear as the 
young lady’s chevalier^ in introdu- 

cing her to her family?” 

“No, you did perfectly right. Poor 
girl ; she hasn’t many friends to stand by 
her, and that of itself would incline a 
fellow to take her part, even if there AA^ere 
nothing else about her to interest him ; 
but she seems to me quite above the com- 
mon run of Avomen, I confess ; she has 

struck my fancy more ” 

• “ So I perceive,” said Audley, inter- 
rupting him ; “so much so that you don’t 
Avant her to strike anybody else’s fancy.” 

“ Don’t pretend to misunderstand me, 
Audley. You knoAV very Avell that there is 
but one woman in the Avorld to whom I 
could ever feel as a lover. I wish to 
heaven it Avere other Avise ; I wish I could 
be captivated by anything that has a 
heart, if she had all the ugly Avords in the 
language for her pedigree.” 

Audley felt the bitter import of his 
words, and Avas silent. After a short 
pause, George resumed, — 

“As to that little romance, as you call 
it, about Buth’s father, I am not sure that 
I am myself acquainted Avith all the facts 
of the case. It’s a family secret that has 
been hushed up as much as possible, 
and kept from the younger generation. 
Neither Claude nor Bruen have ever heard 
a breath of it, and Buth Avas sent away 
from home as soon as her mother died, to 
keep her from flnding out. Mrs. Ilarfleur 
would never consent to part Avith the child 
while she liA^ed. I Avas a little chap my- 
self, hardly out of bibs and petticoats, 
when it all happened, but the scandal had 
not died out when I Avas groAving up, and 
I heard whispers of it from the servants. 
I’ll tell you all I know, by way of putting 
you on your guard. You’ve heard of old 
Bandolph Bruen, Avho cut such a figure in 
the United States some thirty years ago?” 

Malvern nodded assent. 

“Well, he was Buth’s grandfather. 
His daughter Nettie Avas the greatest for- 
tune in all the country, and the crack 
beauty of her day. I remember her as 
she Avas in the latter years of her life, 
very beautiful still, but sad and humbled, 
— not a bit like the portrait. That, how- 
ever, Avas after her misfortunes ; they say 


A FRIW^LY warning. 


li; 


she was, in her youth, as willful and hard- 
headed a piece as ever lived, and spoiled 
beyond remedy by her father and my 
uncle, who was so much his brother’s 
junior as to seem more like a brother 
than an uncle to Nettie. 

“ The old gentleman had set his head 
on marrying her to Julian Harfleur, who 
had been courting her ever since she was 
born, and though very poor, belonged to 
an excellent family, and was considered 
one of the most talented and promising 
young men in the State. Nettie, how- 
ever, wouldn’t hear anything of the sort, 
and finally, like the hard-headed little 
vixen that she was, ended by taking up 
with a foreign adventurer calling himself 
Seabury, whom she met in Washington, 
and married him in spite of everything. 
Old Randolph, when he found he couldn’t 
help himself, consented reluctantly to the 
match, but quarreled with his precious 
son-in-law before the honey-moon was 
well over, and cussed him out of the 
house. Seabury, who with all his ras- 
cality seems to have been a plucky chap, 
gave the old gentleman as good as he 
sent, and, gathering up bag and baggage, 
started off for California, Nettie stand- 
ing by him like a true woman all the 
time. He was induced by the entreaties 
of her family to leave the young wife be- 
hind till after the birth of the baby she was 
expecting, so he set off alone, giving out 
that he was going to prepare a home in 
the Far West, and would come back for her 
within a year •, the journey to California 
was a business of months, you know, in 
those days. There’s a story, too, about 
his having left a ring with her of fabu- 
lous value, which she lost soon afterwards 
very mysteriously, — but I don't remember 
much about that, — it was probably some- 
thing he had got as a gambler or pick- 
pocket; some people think he stole it back 
from her himself, but nobody knows.” 

Audley started at this mention of the 
ring, and wondered if it could be the same 
Ruth wore upon her finger; then imme- 
diately smiled at his own folly, as he re- 
membered how she had obtained it, and 
thought of the endless chain of coinci- 
dences, creating almost a logical absurd- 
ity, that would have been necessary to 
render such an event possible. Still, 
somehow the idea, wild as it was, kept 
recurring to his mind, though he did not 
think it worth while to interrupt his 
friend’s narrative to impart so absurd a 
speculation. 

“Well,” continued George, “the up- 
shot of it all was he never came back. 


8 


and she never even heard of him again 
till some eighteen months after her baby 
was born : she learned through the papers 
that an outlaw named Seabury had been 
hanged by a mob in California for some 
outrage or other committed by him, leav- 
ing, it was stated, half a dozen widows 
(for he was a confoundedly handsome 
devil) in various places to mourn his 
fate. Mr. Bruen sent a confidential 
agent, some shrewd Yankee that Harfleur 
found out for him, to inquire into the 
matter, and discovered that the fellow 
had originally fled from England to 
escape the hands of justice, and that he 
had already been married to three or four 
wives, under as many different names, 
before Nettie ever saw him. What his 
real name was could never be discovered. 

“ Poor Nettie never got over it. She 
was so infatuated with the scoundrel that 
she loved him and believed in him to the 
last in spite of everything. They say he 
was as fascinating a dog as ever lived ; 
could talk like a demi-god when he chose, 
and had the voice of an Apollo.” 

This story made a strange impression 
on Audley Slalvern. While it accounted 
for many things that had puzzled him, it 
gave rise at the sam'e time to new doubts 
and speculations, — vague and undefined, 
it is true ; so vague that he scarcely 
admitted them to his own mind, but they 
made him uncomfortable. He felt pro- 
voked at himself, too, for caring at all 
about the matter. What was this girl to 
him, — a mere chance acquaintance whom 
he had known scarcely three weeks, — 
that he should concern himself as to who 
or what were her progenitors? And yet, 
his first words betrayed that whether he 
admitted it or not, he did care. He 
walked on for some minutes in silence ; 
then flinging away his cigar, he paused 
in his walk, and said, thoughtfully, — 

“ And this villain was the father of 
Miss ” 

“ Harfleur,” said George, supplying 
the word for him. “You may as well 
continue to call her so, since the rightful 
owner of the name has graciously per- 
mitted her to bear it, and we don’t know 
that she has as good a title to any other. 
Mr. Harfleur is a mod^l of magnanimity,” 
George continued, with covert irony. 
“After all the scandal about Seabury, 
he renewed his addresses to Randolph 
Bruen’s daughter, expressly disclaiming* 
all designs upon her fortune, and mag- 
nanimously offered to adopt her child and 
let it go by his name. The family, over- 
come by this generosity, beset Nettie to 


114 


A FAMILY SECRET. 


seize the opportunity for covering up her 
Fhanie ; but she held out against them a 
long time, and only yielded at last to the 
dying entreaty of her father, in consent- 
ing to become Julian Harfieur’s vrife. 
The old man went the way of all flesh 
soon after, leaving his property expressly 
to Nettie’s legitimate children, — Julian 
Ilarfleur to have the use thereof during 
life. No provision was made for the poor 
little waif, — who had no right to be in 
the world at all, — except, I believe, there 
was some verbal stipulation with my 
uncle that the proceeds of certain prop- 
erty placed in his hands should be appro- 
priated to her education. He looked upon 
her as the living monument of his daugh- 
ter's shame, and recommended that she 
should be induced to enter a convent if 
possible. The only idea with them all 
was to get her out of the way somehow. 
My uncle opposed it a little at first; but 
Mr. Ilarfleur persuaded him, and carried 
everything his own way. She was packed 
off* as soon as her mother died, and nobody 
seemed to care very much about it except 
her old nurse, who was soon got rid of 
too. I was a youngster, about fourteen 
years old, at the time ; but hang me if I 
didn’t think, even then, they were a 
cursed sight too anxious to get rid of 
her.^’ 

George made a long pause, during 
which Audley was too much occupied 
with his own thoughts to volunteer any 
remark. After taking several turns up 
and down the garden-walk in silence, 
George laid his hand on Audley’ s shoul- 
der, and said, in a tone of friendly ad- 
monition, — 

“ Now, old boy, I have told you all I 
know about her, and of course you don’t 
need to be reminded that a girl without 
fortune, without family, without a name 
even, it would be entirely out of the 
question for a man in your position, with 
all your confounded prejudices about 
blood and pedigree, and that sort of stuff, 
ever to think seriously of ” 

“Of course, — entirely out of the ques- 
tion,” said Audley, mechanically. 

“And a poor, unfortunate girl, upon 
whose innocent head the world is only 
too ready to visit the sins and mistakes 
of those that went before her, — it is 
equally out of the question for a man 
like you, Audley, to trifle with. I appeal 
to your own noble instincts ; would it be 
generous, would it be honorable, would 
hi be anything but d — d beastly and 
puppyish, to go on fooling round this 
girl, and saying all sorts of little tender 


speeches, merely for your own amuse- 
ment, till her heart was irrevocably lost ? 
I tell you what, Audley, 3^ou’ve never 
been in love yourself, and don’t know 
how bad it hurts ; and if it goes so hard 
with a good-for-nothing dog like me, 
what Avould it be to her? It wouldn’t 
matter so much if she stood on equal 
ground, like the other women that flirt 
with you, my boy, but it ain’t worthy of 
you to let even a random shaft fly at one 
who stands at a sad disadvantage with all 
the world ; I know you wouldn’t mean 
to do it, — I don't believe you are coxcomb 
enough deliberately to flirt with any 
woman living, but you know, Audley, 
you are a devilisli fascinating fellow, and 
play the very dickens with women some- 
times, without even knowing it ; — but in 
this case you must be on your guard, and 
you can’t pretend not to know, for I tell 
you the mischief is begun already ; that 
poor girl wouldn’t have blushed as I saw 
her do at the mere mention of your name 
this morning for nothing.” 

Audley looked in his friend’s face and 
smiled, but colored slightly, in spite of 
himself, as their eyes met. 

“George,” he said, “you are a noble, 
generous fellow, and I honor your motives 
in all you have said, but the warning is 
entirely unnecessary ; you flatter me too 
much in attributing every blush that a 
woman gets up to my fascinations, over- 
whelming as I dare say they are.” 

George shook his head. “ This is no 
subject for jesting, Audley.” 

“'VYell, if nothing else will satisfy 
you,” continued the other, “perhaps it 
will quiet your fears to know that Miss 
Ilarfleur is absolutely impervious to my 
fascinations. I tried them on her once, 
when we first became acquainted, and 
got told for my pains that 1 was shallow 
and impertinent.” 

“ Umph I” growled George. “ I am 
glad one woman has had the pluck to 
pitch into you as you deserve. Did she 
really say that, though ?” 

“Yes, or something very like it, with 
a good many other soft insiniuftions to 
the same purpose, which squelched me so 
effectually that I’ve stood quite in awe 
of her ever since ; in fact, she’s the only 
pretty woman I ever saw in my life that 
I absolutely could not talk contraband to, 
as you call it, if I tried, and I’ve quite 
made up my mind to flill seriously in 
love with her sister. There, does that 
content you? But come, the dance is 
over, — let’s go say something polite to 
the lady managers, and be off.” 


THE BIRD HAS FLOWN. 


115 


When Audley was alone in his room 
that night, he drew from his breast-pocket 
the little book in which he had placed 
Claude’s rose-bud, and turned, not to the 
flower^ but to the pages where he had 
laid the blonde curl that he had picked 
up from the ground after the accident at 
Kiokee River. But the curl was gone, 
and only the blank leaves remained. 
Audley smiled a melancholy smile, and 
turned to the pink rose-bud, that exhaled 
sweet perfume in his hand, and still 
looked almost as fresh as when it first 
dropped from the wearer’s bosom. 

I must have dropped it when I laid 
this here,” he said to himself. “Well, 
perhaps it is best ; a man can’t stoop to 
pick up daisies when the rose is blushing 
in his hand.” 

He tossed the little book carelessly on 
the mantel-piece, before which he was 
standing, and commenced pacing slowly 
up and down the room. After a few 
turns he paused again, and said aloud, 
as if settling some debate with himself, 
“ Yes, yes, Claude Harfleur is the woman 
for me, — fine fortune, fine family, hand- 
some, suitable every way. I’ll trifle over 
it no longer and having come to a defi- 
nite understanding with himself, he went 
to bed, and dreamed of — the blonde curl. 

\ 


CHAPTER XXV. 

THE BIRD HAS FLOWN. 

George Dalton and his friend did not 
return directly to Sandowne after the 
tournament, but spent the next week or 
two on a marauding excursion with a 
party of officers from the garrison at 
pouth Ambury. On their return, George 
invited our friend Ma-jor Maelstrom to 
accompany Malvern and himself to San- 
downe. As their route lay by the scene 
of the recent tournament, their conversa- 
tion naturally turned upon the occurrences 
of that eventful day, and aftgr some dis- 
cussion of the horses and riding, the 
ma;jor suddenly turned to Audley, and 
remarked, — 

“ By the way, colonel, I forgot to tell 
you that the scoundrel you kept from 
being hanged the other day has been sent 
to Andersonville.” 

“ Then you might as well have let him 
be hanged at once,” said George. 


“ He didn’t seem to think so, at any 
rate,” returned the major. 

“ Did he have full liberty of choice ?” 
asked George. 

“Well, to speak plainly,” said the 
major, gravely contemplating the handle 
of his riding-whip, as if addressing him- 
self to that, “it amounted to little else 
in the main than a choice between the 
chances of dying there and being hanged 
here. You see Mr. Harfleur and one or 
two others were so confident of his being 
a spy, that nothing would suit them but 
the fellow must be hanged, right away, 
so, to get rid of the business, I quietly 
slipped him ofi* to Andersonville day 
before yesterday, along with a lot of 
Yankee prisoners that came up from 
Florida.” 

Audley listened with eager attention. 
The mention of Mr. Harfleur’ s name 
brought back to his mind all the wild, 
half-formed conjectures that had been 
floating through it since the day of the 
tournament. 

“ Did Mr. Harfleur urge this man’s 
execution again after he was carried to 
South Ambury?” asked Audley, quickly. 

“ Yes ; he came to my office two or 
three times about it,” said the major ; 
“ in fact, he seemed so anxious about it 
that I couldn’t hardly help thinking there 
must be something more than he was 
ready to own at the bottom of it all.” 

“ Perhaps he had some special grounds 
of suspicion against the man,” suggested 
Audley. “ Couldn’t you find out any- 
thing about the fellow, — what’s his name, 
and where he came from?” 

“ He c«alled himself Dick Roby, and 
that’s about all I could get out of him, 
he kept so close. He stuck it out, 
though, that he wasn’t no Yankee spy, 
and offered to prove it if I would give 
him time. But that, you see, was just 
what I couldn’t ver}^ well do ; the cannale''^ 
said the major, in good faith for canaille., 
“ seemed, somehow, to be getting stirred 
up about him again. The night after the 
ball we like to have had a mob around 
the jail, so I sent him off to the stockade 
to get rid of him-, and he’ll be done for 
there,” added the major, with grim com- 
posure, “ about as effectually as if we’d 
’a hanged him. Them poor devils at 
Andersonville do fare like beasts, there 
ain’t no doubt about that ; ’twould be a 
deuced shame, if there was anything 
better could be done.” 

Audley was too much absorbed in the 
one idea that occupied him to feel just 
then any philanthropic interest in general 


116 


A FAMILY SECRET. 


questions of prison discipline, and has- 
tened to bring the major back to the point 
from which he was wandering. 

“And your prisoner,’’ he asked, “this 
Roby, how did he take the idea of going 
to Andersonville?” 

“ Tie? he knew he couldn’t help himself 5 
besides, he seemed to prefer taking his 
chances there to staying here. The fel- 
low looked to me like he was constantly 
suspicious of foul play from some quarter, 
and was glad to be off on any terms. I 
ain’t sure now but he ought to have been 
hanged, but the rascal was so game that 
I couldn’t have the heart to treat him like 
a common knave ; besides, he didn’t have 
the lingo, and he seemed, too, to know 
some good Southerners. He asked per- 
mission to communicate with General 
Brockenborough, and wrote a letter to him 
just before starting, which I mailed my- 
self; but little good it'll do him now.” 

“ Brockenborough ! and the news of his 
death arrived only last night I He Avas a 
special friend of mine,” said Audley, 
“ and true as steel ; you might safely 
trust any man that he would vouch for.” 

“Yes, I knew that; but it’s too late 
now ; Avhat is it the Bible says about a 
dead lion ain’t worth a dog’s nose? and 
oor Brock’s a dead lion now. Halloo! 
ere we are at the house.” 

After dinner that day, while the gentle- 
men sat smoking on the piazza, Audley 
was busy revolving a scheme that had 
been dimly shaping itself in his brain 
ever since his conversation Avith Major 
Maelstrom about the prisoner. Somehow, 
he began to feel an unaccountable interest 
in this vagabond, and the more he thought 
about him, and the harder he tried to 
convince himself that there was really 
nothing extraordinary about the man, the 
more lively did his curiosity become. The 
felloAV seemed to have been on confidential 
terms Avith Brockenborough ; that spoke 
AA^ell for him at any rate. Could it really 
be, as a certain indefinable something 
about him seemed to imply, that he was 
not Avhat circumstances Avould appear to 
indicate, or Avas that only an illusion of 
Audley’s imagination? And why was 
^Mr. Harfleur so strangely affected at the 
sight of him, or what secret stake had he 
in his destruction ? 

And then Ruth, — what was the meaning 
of that ineffable look the stranger had 
fixed upon her, and Mr. Harfleur’ s an- 
swering deadly glance? The very memory 
of it thrilled Audley to the heart, and a 
strange, sickly feeling came over him. 

He sat for some time in silence, pon- 


dering over all that he had seen and heard, 
till at last, having finished his cigar, he 
surprised George and the major in the 
midst of an interesting discourse upon 
the physical conditions of the country, 
with regard to the distribution of venison 
and Avild-tiirkey, with the abrupt query, — 

“ George, hoAv far is it from here to 
Andei’vsonville ?” 

“ I don’t knoAV exactly : some sixty or 
seventy miles, I should say. But what the 
devil put that into your head?” 

“ I was thinking I would like to go 
there, if we could manage it.” 

“ Manage it? why, of course Ave can, if 
you like ; but why the deuce to Anderson- 
ville? Can’t you think of any pleasanter 
place of resort?” 

“ AYell, it isn’t exactly the spot I would 
pitch upon for a pleasure trip,” said 
Audley, lighting a fresh cigar, “ but I 
want to see the stockade ; one hears so 
much of it, and, as a military man, you 
know, I naturally take an interest in such 
matters.” 

“ And I, as a military man, unnatu- 
rally don’t,” said George, throAving him- 
self back lazily in his chair and propping 
his feet on the banisters. “ I never had 
any patience with those meddlesome 
philanthropists that go poking about into 
all sorts of uncomfortable places, tor- 
menting themselves about evils they 
can’t prevent ; but I’ll get up a spirit of 
active research for a few days to please 
you. Let’s see ; by taking the cars at 
South Ambury we can reaeh Anderson- 
ville early in the afternoon. It’s more 
than a day’s journey by private convey- 
ance, but then, if we go up to Winter- 
dale on Saturday to meet Ridgely and 
Stockdale as we promised, we’ll be half- 
Avay there already, and might as well go 
on in our buggies. We can spend Sunday 
and Monday at Ridgely’s plantation, — 
capital shooting there, major, and no end 
of fish in the lake ; you should taste some 
of old Mrs. Ridgely’s stuffed trout; it’s 
a thing to remember ; — and then, Aud- 
ley, if you like, Ave’ll make Ridgely and 
Stockdale ride on up to Andersonville 
with us.” 

“ All right,” said Malvern, leisurely 
watching the blue cloud that escaped 
from his lips. “ Arrange it as you think 
best ; and d propos^ major,” turning to 
Maelstrom, “I’d like t,o see that pris- 
oner of yours again if we can find him. 
I’ve got a notion in my head that I’ve 
seen that fellow before somewhere, and 
it’ll bother me till I make him out ; be- 
I sides, I Avould like to find out if he really 


THE BIRD HAS FLOWN, 


117 


does know, anything about Brocken- 
borough. Is there any way of getting 
at him, do you suppose, among so 
many ?'’ 

“ Oh, yes ; I reckon so,” replied the 
major, “ unless the scoundrel has changed 
his name again ; and he’d hardly be up 
to anything of that sort now, I reckon. 
Besides, I’ll know him in a minute if I 
see him again, and I’d like to find out 
something more about the chap myself*, 
he’s a game-cock, he is.” 

Matters being thus settled, the young 
men set out on their expedition at the 
time appointed, and arrived at the stock- 
ade late one afternoon, though still in 
ample time to be conducted round it 
before dark. They were courteously re- 
ceived by the officers of the garrison, to 
most of \vhom George and his young 
friends, Ridgely and Stockdale, were 
well known. 

The place has been sketched too often 
and by too many different hands to need 
further description here, and to one 
familiar with the scenery of the pine- 
lands there is little remarkable about it. 
After examining the outside defenses of 
the prison, the visitors expressed a desire 
to penetrate within; which was readily 
granted. When they reached the en- 
trance, however, the commandant, who 
had accompanied them in all their rounds, 
suddenly withdrew, leaving them to the 
guidance of two young lieutenants. Col- 
onel Malvern was surprised at this pro- 
ceeding, until one of the young men, 
interpreting his look, explained, in an 
under-tone, — 

‘‘ He daresn’t go in, sir, for his life. 
They would tear him to pieces if they 
could get at him, and he knows it.” 

“ Why, that speaks bad for your dis- 
cipline, lieutenant,” said Audley. I 
should think those musical instruments 
yonder,” pointing to a battery that 
crowned a neighboring height, “ might 
be made to exert a more soothing effect.” 

It’s no fault of the discipline, col- 
onel,” said the young guide, touching 
his hat respectfully, “ but the cap’en’s 
so unpopular, you see. He’s right hard 
on ’em. I’m bound to admit, and they 
hate him so that they would tear him to 
pieces, if he was to show his face in there, 
without regard to consequences, though 
they know they would all be bio wed to 
thunder the next minute.” 

“ And how about the other officers ?” 
inquired Audley. “ Is this unpopular- 
ity the rule or the exception?” 

‘‘Well, they like the gray about as 


well as a mad bull likes red or a rebel 
likes blue, — that’s natural, you know, — 
but they don’t seem to hate any of the 
rest of us bad enough to risk the conse- 
quences of knocking our brains out.” 

“ Are they tolerably civil to visitors, or 
do they seem to regard their presence as 
an intrusion?” 

“ That depends a good deal upon how 
the visitors behave themselves,” replied 
the lieutenant. “ They’re a pretty hard 
set though at best; and then some al- 
lowance must be made for the way they 
have been bothered by the common peo- 
ple coming here to stare and gab, — these 
reg’lar sand-hillers and backwoods crack- 
ers, sir, that ain’t got as much idea how 
to behave themselves as niggers ; none 
of the better class ever comes here, ex- 
cept the military.” 

“ I am surprised that your officers don’t 
require all visitors to conduct themselves 
properly,” said Audley, severely. “ It is 
due to the honor of the nation to protect 
its prisoners from insult. I would as soon 
think of allowing a woman under my 
charge to be insulted as an unarmed 
prisoner, were he ten times a Yankee.” 

“A woman! ah, but there is just the 
trouble, colonel,” replied the lieutenant. 
“ If low-down men was the worst that ever 
came here, they would be easy enough 
managed ; but when their women come, 
spitting snuflT and jawing around like 
magpies, what is a feller to do? You 
can’t protect yourself against ’em, much 
less your prisoners. When a woman goes 
to cussin’, sir, a feller can but stand and 
take it, you know.” 

“When a woman goes to cussin’,” re- 
plied Audley, amused at this new code 
of gallantry, “ I don’t think a fellow need 
be afflicted with any scruples of delicacy 
regarding her ; and if she wonH be si- 
lenced, she can at least be kept away 
from where her words will disgrace the 
nation as well as herself.” 

“ But there is no regulation forbidding 
anybody to come here. This is a free 
country, you know, where one man is 
just as good as another, and so I suppose 
one woman is too,” replied the lieutenant, 
unconscious of the satire that lay in his 
words. “ But then it is fun,” he con- 
tinued, with a twinkle of boyish mischief 
in his eye, “to see ’em sometimes when 
they’ve been egged on a little. We let 
the prisoners jaw back at ’em, Tom and 
me do, when we’re on duty; and it’s as 
good as a circus, especially when they 
get hold of a Dutchman, and cuss awav 
at each other like rips, and neither of 


118 


A FAMILY SECRET, 


’em don’t know what the other’s a 
saying.” 

Audley eyed the stripling sadly. lie 
was a mere lad, who ought to have been 
at home spinning tops and flying kites, 
instead of playing soldier at Anderson- 
ville. 

Alas,” said Audley to himself, “ that 
the nation has not men enough to do her 
work, but must drag boys from their 
trundle-beds before they can discern good 
from evil !” 

He was meditating a lecture to the 
young scapegrace upon the laws of war, 
when he was forestalled by the other ad- 
dressing him, — 

“ Here comes Father Hammond,” he 
said, indicating a person in the dress of a 
Romish priest, who was approaching the 
entrance on his way to the stockade. “ If 
you would like to talk with the prisoners, 
you had better go in along with him. He’s 
such a favorite with them, they’ll be more 
civil if they see you in his company ; and, 
besides, he can tell you more about ’em 
than anybody else ; he as good as lives 
here among ’em.” 

Audley liked the proposal, and the 
priest having readily agreed to accom- 
pany the party, they entered the rude 
inclosure destined one day to acquire 
such fatal celebrity. The prisoners, ob- 
serving the uniforms of the intruders, 
were at first dogged and sullen, and, 
though they did not dare to manifest any 
open discourtesy, it was plain they bore 
no good will to the wearers of the gray. 
Father Hammond’s presence, however, 
seemed to create a more favorable im- 
pression, which gradually extended itself 
to his companions. This excellent Chris- 
tian had devoted himself to the welfare, 
spiritual and corporal, of the prisoners 
with the zeal and self-abnegation so char- 
acteristic of his order. Night and day 
was this self-devoted missionary at work 
among the miserable victims of war, 
soothing the dying, exhorting the living, 
and blessing the nameless graves that 
closed over the enemies of the land he 
loved, — forgiven now, for the grave knows 
neither love nor hatred. The influence of 
the humble priest over those forlorn and 
degraded men was something almost di- 
vine. AVherever he went the poor, wan 
faces were lighted with smiles, and lips 
accustomed only to blaspheme were 
closed in respectful silence or spoke but 
to crave a blessing. Audley’ s irresistible 
charm of manner soon made itself felt 
here also. Without derogating at all 
from the dignity of his position as a 


Confederate officer, he addressed the 
prisoners with a frankness and good 
humor that conciliated even the most 
obdurate, and, while according them the 
respect due to misfortune, did not fail to 
inspire at the same time all that was due 
from inferiors to a superior. 

The prisoners were miserably dirty 
and ragged, and wore a sallow, ema- 
ciated aspect, — the natural efiect of ex- 
posure to a climate unsuited to men of 
Northern birth, though regarded by na- 
tives of the swampy flats below as pecu- 
liarly refreshing and salubrious. The 
visitors soon disposed of all their pocket- 
money, distributing it among those of 
the prisoners Avhose condition most ex- 
cited their compassion. George even 
parted with his last cigar, after he had 
given away everything else, and though 
the major vehemently declared that, if 
he had control of the battery up yonder, 
he’d soon have the whole stockade and 
every d — d Yankee in it blowed to 
blazes, by Jove, Malvern observed that 
his hand went often to his pocket, when 
he thought nobody was looking, and be- 
fore the close of their expedition he had 
contrived to get rid of his hat and his 
overcoat, too. The cause of this self- 
spoliation on the major’s part was a mis- 
erable wretch whose wardrobe had be- 
come reduced to a single garment, and 
that a ragged shirt. The destitute creat- 
ure, shivering with ague, and reduced by 
want and disease to a mere skeleton, had, 
the better to protect his shrunken limbs, 
run his legs through the sleeves of the 
shirt, and tied the tail about his neck. 
His rude companions, rendered callous 
and brutal, as men always are, by herd- 
ing together, saw only a subject for ridi- 
cule in the forlorn and abject figure of 
their comrade. Worn out with sickness, 
and wearied with their coarse taunts, the 
unhappy man — a sensitive Pole, who un- 
derstood just enough English to compre- 
hend their brutality — grew weary of his 
life, and resolved to end it. Covering 
his face with his hands, he was about to 
step over the fatal “ dead line,” full un- 
der the muskets of the guard, when he 
was arrested by the major, and covered 
with the garments of that ferocious rebel. 
The major seemed very much ashamed at 
being caught in the act of giving “ aid 
and comfort” to the enemy, and began to 
excuse himself as earnestly as if he had 
been detected in some abominable treach- 
ery. ^‘I couldn’t help it,” lie exclaimed, 
as the rest of the party came upon him ; 
“you’d any of you have done it your- 


THE BIRD HAS FLOWN. 


119 


selves forthe poor devil, you know you 
would. Confound him, I wish I had let 
him get his infernal Yankee brains 
hi owed out ; but may the Lord forgive 
me, I couldn’t help it. By Jove, Dal- 
ton, get me out of this place quick, or I 
shall begin to feel sorry for these scoun- 
drels.” 

In the mean time Audley had not for- 
gotten the object of his visit to Ander- 
souville. He began hy asking the priest 
if he knew anything of a man calling 
himself Dick Roby, and described as well 
as he could the prisoner’s appearance. 

“ Dick Roby,” said Father Hammond, 
musingly, — “ a new arrival, is he not?” 

“ Yes •, was sent up last Tuesday or 
Wednesday, I think.” 

“Roby — ^Dick Roby,” repeated the 
priest. “ There was a gentleman here 
yesterday, a Mr. — I forget his name, 
making inquiries about the same man. 
You had better examine the register 
when we return to headquarters. Such 
a person did arrive here, I believe, about 
the time you speak of, but, if I mistake 
not, he was one of three who made their 
escape night before last. A very desper- 
ate set they were, I am told, and he the 
most daring of the three ; but Mr. Bail- 
ley here,” indicating the older of the two 
officervS who accompanied them, “ can tell 
you better about these matters than I.” 

“ Oh, yes,” said Bailley, hearing him- 
self appealed to ; “ I was officer of the 
day when it happened. The men were 
detailed late in the afternoon to bury 
some corpses. The garrison has been 
weakened recently by detachments sent 
to the coast, so they had to be trusted 
under the guard of a couple of raw 
recruits, ‘’scripts,’ at that, who are never 
very reliable. The rascals contrived to 
get the better of them somehow, — knocked 
them down with spades, they say, and 
then took their arms away ; but there’s 
no telling when to believe these fellows, 
and there is just as likely to have been 
treachery as violence at the bottom of it. 
The first squad sent in pursuit tracked 
them a good way, but didn’t succeed in 
coming up with them.” 

“ I should hardly have thought it pos- 
sible for prisoners to evade this place 
successfully,” said Audley, glancing 
round at the defenses. “ It must be 
fully one hundred miles to the nearest 
Yankee outpost, and they can find no 
lurking-places, I fancy, among the country 
people. What point do they generally 
strike for when they escape ?” 

“ Most of ’em either make directly for 


the coast or aim at the swamps of the 
Altamaha, where they join the deserters. 
There is quite a formidable gang down 
there, made up of deserters from both 
armies and birds from our cage, and 
fugitives stand a much better chance of 
escape in that direction than any other. 
Roby and his men started out that way, 
and the sergeant who went in pursuit 
said, from the course they took, there 
must be some one among them thoroughly 
acquainted with the country. A fresh 
squad was dispatched this morning, with 
orders to capture any fugitives they could 
find, dead or alive. There was a gentle- 
man here yesterday, from some of the 
lower counties, making inquiries about 
this same Roby. Harper, I think, was 
his name *, a queer-looking fellow, with 
gray hair and very dark skin, who com- 
plained so bitterly of depredations com- 
mitted in his neighborhood upon live- 
stock and corn-cribs by these runaway 
vagabonds, that the commandant thought 
he ought to take stringent measures. 
The gentleman himself seemed to have 
been one of the chief sufferers, and was 
very urgent to have the scoundrels 
brought to justice. He rode off with 
the squad, and I think it will go hard 
with any of the rascals he may overtake, 
though I doubt if Roby and his party 
can be caught,— they had too much the 
start, and there is a sharp fellow among 
’em, you may depend on that.” 

Audley hardly knew what to think. 
He had no difficulty in recognizing 
Julian Harfieur under the thin disguise 
of Mr. Harper, nor in seeing through the 
ruse by which he had obtained the sanc- 
tion of law to some secret purpose of his 
own. That that purpose was to crush 
and destroy, Audley could no longer 
doubt ; but why this relentless persecu- 
tion, this vindictive pursuit, and, above 
all, why this mortal dread of a creature 
whom fortune seemed to have placed too 
low for aught but the pity of a man like 
Harfleur? What could one so abject 
have done to deserve his hate? What 
could he yet do to excite his fear? That 
there was something between these two 
men who seemed so far apart, some dark 
link of hatred, fear, perhaps of crime, 
Audley felt assured ; but the wild con- 
jecture that seized his mind, and filled 
him, he knew not why, with a strange 
sense of strange disquiet, — could there be 
any reason in that ? What this wild sus- 
picion was he hardly acknowledged to 
himself, still, it haunted his mind, and 
baflled all his efforts to drive it away, or 


120 


A FAMILY SECRET. 


convince himself that he felt no interest 
in the matter beyond mere idle curiosity. 

Audley was invited, with his compan- 
ions, to lodge that night at the com- 
mandant’s quarters, where they were 
introduced to all the officers of the gar- 
rison, and Audley found ample opportu- 
nity to make further inquiries about the 
fugitive, but could elicit nothing more 
than he already knew. 


CHAPTER XXVI. 

IN THE BOWELS OF THE EARTH. 

That same night, while Audley Mal- 
vern sat comfortably smoking his cigar 
in the officers’ quarters at Andersonville, 
a man, dusty and way-worn, was hurry- 
ing rapidly along the little by-path lead- 
ing to Aunt Chloe’s cabin. He picked 
his way cautiously through the darkness, 
often looking behind him, and keeping 
close to the edge of the brake, until he 
came directly opposite the old negro’s 
door. He approached cautiously, and 
looked through a crevice in the wall. 
The hut was dimly lighted by the flicker- 
ing glare of a single pine-brand. The 
sole occupant, an old black woman, dry 
and shriveled as a mummy, hovered 
over the embers, crooning to herself one 
of those dismal, monotonous chants that 
make up so large a portion of negro 
psalmody. The man hesitated a moment, 
then put his hand on the latch, and 
softly opened the door. 

I must find help here,” he said to 
himself as he entered, “ or we will all die 
of hunger ; and to perish now would be 
to resign justice forever. Yes, yes, I 
must live a little longer, for her sake.” 

He moved across the room so noise- 
lessly that the old woman was not aware 
of his presence till he touched her on the 
shoulder, and whispered in her ear, “ Aunt 
Chloe.” 

She started up with a cry, which he 
smothered by placing his hand over her 
mouth. 

“ Don’t be frightened, old mauma : you 
know me now,” he said, gently, taking 
off his hat, and bending so that the fire- 
light fell for a moment full upon his worn 
and haggard features, revealing a broad, 
noble forehead, and a pair of strangely 
flashing dark-blue eyes, that once beheld, 
could never be forgotten. 


The old woman gazed with a look of 
half terror, half joy, upon the tattered 
figure before her. 

‘‘ Yes, yes,” she said; “may de Lord 
have mercy on us, it’s ” 

“ Never speak that name till I come 
again, and give you leave,” said the man, 
stopping her mouth with his hand. “ Yes, 
I am he you take me for. I am known 
now, to one at least, and my worst enemy 
is on my track. Hush, don’t ask any 
questions, but listen to me, <and promise, 
first of all things, that you will never 
betray the secret of my having been here, 
even to the person you trust most in the 
world ; if you wish to save the last de- 
scendant of your old master’s house, 
promise me this.” 

“ For de love o’ de Lord, massa, I 
promise you everything ; but if Massa 
George Bruen ” 

“ Hush,” said the mran, with a darken- 
ing countenance. “ On your promise I 
stake my life. No, no more light,” as 
she made a motion to stir the fire ; “ there 
is too much for me already. And now, 
have you anything to eat? I have been 
in prison ; I escaped with two other men ; 
we are pursued and ready to famish. 
Give me everything you have in the 
house. I have nothing now to give in 
return, but keep my secret, and when I 
come back you shall be well paid.” 

“ Ah, if you would only let me go to 
Mr. Bruen,” the old woman began, paus- 
ing in her search for food ; “he been a 
good man, and ” 

“ Hush !” said the man, sternly ; “ there 
is no time for talking now, old mauma, 
but I’ll make everything clear some day, 
and then you may proclaim me from the 
housetops if you choose ; but quick now, 
the victuals, — every minute is life and 
death to me.’^ 

The old woman drew a few roasted 
potatoes from the ashes, produced a pone 
of corn-bread from under a tin pan, and 
half a side of bacon from the chimney 
corner, which she tumbled together into 
a bag, and the man, having obtained 
these supplies, hurried back towards the 
swamps. Two others emerged from the 
brake as he approached, and began vora- 
ciously devouring the food which he dis- 
tributed to them. They had only tasted 
a few mouthfuls, when one of the men 
suddenly started to his feet. 

“Hush, Roby; what’s that?” 

Roby paused an instant in his eating 
to listen, then flung aside the morsel he 
was just raising to his lips and sprang 
to his feet without a word. 


m THE BOWELS OF THE EARTH 


121 


“ That’s Jack’s bark,” said the first 
speaker, shaking his head despondently, 
as the distant baying of hounds was 
borne on the breeze. “ They’re upon us 
again, and it’s no use trying now, for 
Jack never loses the scent.” 

Don’t give up yet, boys, but follow 
me,” said Roby, suddenly striking off* at 
a rapid pace through the forest. “ The 
creek is only half a mile from here, you 
can both swim, — hold on to the meat, 
Lawler, — and now for dear life.” 

The poor, tired wretches sped on after 
their leader as fast as their weary limbs 
would carry them, but the baying grew 
louder, and they saw that their pursuers 
were gaining at every step. At last they 
came so near that the trampling of their 
horses’ hoofs was clearly audible. 

“ Throw down your bacon, Lawler,” 
cried Roby, “ it will divert the hounds a 
little ; and now take heart, yonder is 
Chickassennee Swamp before us, and no 
horse can penetrate there.” 

In another moment they had plunged 
into the canebrake and were painfully 
fighting their way among reeds and 
brambles, and through bogs, in which 
they sank, often, up to the knees. But 
theirs was a race for life, and they toiled 
desperately onward, until they were re- 
warded at last by a sound of running 
water. 

“ Plunge, boys, and make for the other 
side as fast as you can,” said Roby. 

You don’t hear their dogs now, because 
they have gone up to the ford to cross, — 
that’s some gain ; it '11 give us time to 
reach the broad lagoon where the old 
gentleman keeps the pleasure-boat, and 
once in the boat, we are safe. — God grant 
they haven’t thought of that !” 

The water was broad and deep but not 
very rapid, and by directing their course 
down-stream the fugitives gained the 
opposite shore without much difficulty. 
They were now so exhausted with fatigue 
and hunger that they could scarcely drag 
themselves along, but hope buoyed them 
up, and they toiled eagerly onward till they 
reached the banks of the lagoon. Lawler 
sprang forward and caught at a cable that 
lay coiled upon the ground, then sank to 
the earth with a cry of despair, for the 
boat was gone. Even Roby’s spirit seemed 
to fail him under this blow. He flung him- 
self upon the ground and covered his face 
with his hands, muttering to himself, as 
he did so, “ Lost ! all is lost ! I must die, 
and the truth will perish with me.” 

Their situation, indeed, seemed desper- 
ate. The canebrake on this side was suf- 


ficiently open for horse to penetrate, and 
the baying of blood-hounds, which was 
borne again to their ears, told only too 
plainly that their enemies were close 
upon their track. The sound seemed to 
rouse Roby from a kind of stupor. 

Boys,” he said, raising his head with 
a look of desperate resolution in his face, 
“ are you ready for another plunge?” 

‘•What’s the use?” asked Lawler, de- 
spairingly. 

“ Not much, perhaps, but I do know a 
place of assured safety, if we can get 
across the lagoon, where we can at least 
rest ourselves and consider. If you think 
it worth the effort, follow me.” 

They crossed by a great effort, Roby 
and Lawler sustaining their weaker com- 
panion between them, and then, taking 
up the bed of a small wet-weather 
run that flowed into the lagoon, Roby 
halted at the end of a few hundred paces 
before a ledge of earth and limestone that 
formed a miniature precipice on the left 
bank. Pushing aside the brush and vines 
that covered the face of this little cliff, he 
disclosed an opening near the front about 
as large as a barrel-head, and, motioning 
his companions to follow, he began to 
crawl in upon his hands and knees. The 
men were startled as they approached the 
cavity at feeling themselves urged in- 
wards by a strong draught, as though 
some powerful current were setting in 
through the mouth, and as they replaced 
the covering of vines and bushes that had 
been thrust aside for their entrance the 
whole mass flew violently back, as if 
driven by a whirlwind, while loosened 
leaves and twigs flew past them and went 
capering down the dark labyrinth. The 
draught did not diminish as they pro- 
ceeded, but swept on through the sombre 
vaults of this subterranean passage with 
a strange whispering sound like the flut- 
tering of winged spirits in the darkness. 

The r^fug^ to which Roby had con- 
ducted His companions was a mysterious 
spot known as the Blowing Cave. It had 
been observed by old hunters that at 
certain hours of day a strong current 
seemed to set into the cave, sucking in 
with it any light substances that hap- 
pened to be near the mouth, while at 
other times, after regular intervals, a 
similar current would flow Outwards, 
carrying off, with considerable force, 
leaves and twigs that were thrust in its 
way. The ignorant whites knew this 
singular cavern as the “ hole the earth 
breathes through,” and held it in such 
* awe that on no account would they ven- 


122 


A FAMILY SECREF 


ture near it *, while to the negroes it Avas 
the vcr}^ door to the bottomless pit, and 
whoever came Avithin the fatal influence 
of its breath would be sucked doAvn in- 
evitably to the loAvest depths of Tartarus. 
The intelligent Avhites accounted for the 
mysterious perflations of the cavern by 
supposing it to communicate at its other 
extremity with the gulf, and to be in- 
fluenced by the ebb and flow of the tides. 
The chief difficulty in the way of this 
solution Avas the great distance, the 
nearest sea-coast being full a hundred 
miles off, and it was hard to conceive of 
any subterranean territory of such stu- 
pendous dimensions. IIoAvever, the vacant 
channel of some extinct underground 
stream could aflbrd the necessary com- 
munication Avithout supposing a second 
Mammoth Cave, and it Avas suggested 
that Chickassennee Creek might, in pre- 
historic times, have made its way by that 
route to the sea, though it had latterly 
found a more convenient outlet by min- 
gling its waters Avith the Petaula. But all 
this Avas mere conjecture, as no attempt 
had ever been made to explore the cave, 
and no human eye, so far as was known, 
had ever beheld the interior farther than 
could be seen by looking in through the 
mouth. The superstitious fears of the 
ignorant, the lazy indifference of the 
upper classes, kept either from making 
any practical investigations. And this re- 
markable spot, where, if it had been in 
NeAv England, some enterprising Yankee 
would haA^e had a toll-gate and a hotel 
thronged with tourists and bill-stickers, 
remained an utter solitude, unknoAvn 
eA^en to the pioneers of Ilelmbold’s 
Buchu,’^ or “ Sozodont for the Teeth.” 
Everybody had heard of the Blowing 
Cave, but there were not half a dozen 
people in the county Avho had any defi- 
nite notion of its Avhereabouts. Even Mr. 
Bruen, Avho knew that the entrance was 
somewhere on his OAvn plantation, was no 
more able to give the exact locality than 
to point out the entrance to vSan Matteo. 

Dick Roby plunged fearlessly into the 
dark Avomb of this unexplored AA^ernus. 
A few yards from the entrance the vault 
expanded sufficiently for the men to stand 
upright, and the walls receded from their 
touch. Roby, hoAvever, seemed at no loss 
which direction to take. 

“ Step to the right, boys,” he said, 
groping along the Avail with his hands, 
“ the walking is better here : it’s not so 
damp ; and there’s a ledge of rock a little 
farther on, where we can sit down to 
rest and talk over our affairs.” 


The men folloAved him mechanically. 
Roby’s superior intelligence had estab- 
lished such empire over them that he was 
tacitly recognized as their chief. There 
Avas something about him that inspired 
respect and commanded obedience from 
the rude outlaAA^s that chance had made 
his companions. His garb was as mean 
as their own, his language as rude, and 
to all outward appearance he was but a 
A^agabond like themselves ; yet, in spite 
of all this, there was an inherent nobility 
about him that impressed them, without 
seeming to assert itself, and made them 
yield unquestioningly to his guidance. 
Ilis fertility of invention and readiness of 
resource, his indomitable courage and 
perseverance, were qualities that would 
naturally recommend themselves even to 
the unlearned, while that singular versa- 
tility of manner, by which he seemed to 
adapt himself instinctively to Avhatever 
company he Avas in, won for him empire 
over the hearts as Avell as the minds of 
men. Yet, his manner, though frank and 
Avinning, never invited familiarity ; and 
while he addressed his companions un- 
ceremoniously as ‘‘ LaAvler” and “ Beck- 
itt,” it never occurred to them to take 
the same liberty with him, but they 
ahvays accosted him respectfully as Mr. 
Roby, or more frequently as “cap’en.” 

But unbounded as Avas their confidence 
in their leader, the two men Avere not in- 
sensible to the superstitious terrors of the 
place, Avhere the wind Avent Avhispering 
through the Stygian caA^erns Avith a Avild, 
unearthly sound. Roby explained to 
them, in a few simple words, how the 
draught through the cavern Avas ac- 
counted for, and pointed out the great 
advantage to themselves of this thorough 
ventilation. Besides, the strong inflow 
of the current at present would prevent 
the dogs getting scent of them, even 
should they chance to track them to the 
mouth of the cave, which Avas hardly 
probable, since the fugitiA^es had not 
made a step on dry ground since plung- 
ing into the lagoon, and had, therefore, 
left no trail behind. 

^‘Ain’t there no danger that the men 
might take it into their heads to search 
the cave?” asked Lawler. 

“ Search the cave ! they don’t knoAv 
where to find it,” ansAvered Roby. “ There 
ain’t a dozen people knoA\"s where it is.” 

“ Hoav come you to knoAv, cap’en?” 
asked Beckitt. “You must ^a ben in 
these diggins afore.” 

Roby remained silent a moment, and 
when he replied it was in an altered voice. 


m THE BOWELS OF THE EARTH 


123 


“ Yes, I have been in this country be- 
fore,” he said, “a great many years ago. 
It was then I went a little way into this 
cave, and I believe I am the only human 
being that has ever set foot inside of it.” 

‘‘And good luck you did, cap’en,” said 
Lawler; “but death and hell I what’s 
that?” 

They had groped their way round a 
sharp angle in the wall of the cavern, 
and as they emerged from its shadow be- 
held, with wonder and dismay, a dull, 
reddish glow illuminating the spaces 
ahead of them. They could not discern 
from what source the light emanated, 
but they knew, from the steady, though 
feeble glow, that it must be stationary ; 
and judged, from the long vista of inter- 
vening earthen wall and rocky ledge, 
that it was a long distance off. The in- 
terior of the cavern, as revealed by this 
unexpected illumination, was like a wind- 
ing tunnel, stretching, for aught they 
could see, to infinity in length, but very 
much circumscribed in its other dimen- 
sions. The sides nowhere receded more 
than a few yards apart, and the roof, in 
many places, was so low that they could 
touch it with their hands. 

The poor fugitives, however, took little 
note of these things. Beckitt and Lawler, 
though endowed with brute courage 
enough to supply a regiment for battle 
with foes of honest flesh and blood, 
quailed at the prospect of an encounter 
with the ghostly horrors of these Stygian 
regions, and Roby himself, though he 
feared not man nor devil, felt his heart 
sink with dire misgiving. The thought 
that the secrecy of this last refuge had 
been violated, that, after so many toils 
and dangers undergone, hunted and 
hounded in the very bowels of the earth, 
their last hope of safety and rest departed, 
weary, famishing, foot-sore, they might 
be compelled to fly again, and fly into the 
very jaws of destruction, filled his soul 
with bitterness. 

Yet, he never once flagged in the strong 
urpose that seemed to urge him on. 
ome powerful motive was at work within 
the man that endowed him with super- 
human energy and endurance. Some- 
thing stronger than the love of life, 
stronger even than the love of liberty, 
seemed to impel him onwards. If mere 
life had been all, he would have yielded 
it up long ago, as a thing hardly worth 
struggling for ; but it was evident this 
man felt he had a work to accomplish, 
and he must not and could not die till it 
was done. 


Speedily vrecovering himself, after the 
first shock of surprise and dismay, Roby 
ordered his companions to stay where 
they were while he went forward to re- 
connoitre. Groping his way cautiously, 
and keeping as much as possible on the 
shaded side of the cavern, he approached 
to within a few paces of the spot from 
which the light proceeded, when he sud- 
denly paused, and felt a cold shiver run 
over him, for he beheld at his feet a hu- 
man form, stark and still, huddled up on 
a bank of soft earth. It was covered over 
with a blanket, only one foot and leg pro- 
truding. Roby held his breath and lis- 
tened ; the stillness was awful ; no sound 
of any voice or motion, save the strange 
mysterious whispers of the ever-rushing 
wind. He advanced a few steps farther 
with the utmost caution, skulking close 
to the wall, until he reached the jutty of 
rock from l3ehind which the light seemed 
to proceed, and, stealing warily to the 
edge, beheld — not a stream of lurid brim- 
stone, nor a witches’ sabbath, nor yet a 
camp of banditti, but a few peaceful 
light-wood fagots slowly consuming into 
dust and ashes. Not far ofi* lay a heap 
of pine-knots for replenishing the fire at 
need, while Roby’s hungry eyes rested, 
with eager delight, on a lot of roasted 
potatoes lying in the ashes, and the half 
of a freshly-baked hoe-cake, still warm, 
upon the coals. 

A little farther off, on a projecting ledge 
of limestone that had been made to serve 
as a pantry-shelf, lay a whole “ sides o’ 
bacon,” a bag of meal, a tempting leg of 
fresh pork, and various other articles of 
diet that seemed to have been laid up by 
some provident hand for future use. From 
these signs Roby guessed at once that he 
had lighted upon the den of a runaway 
negro, though it was hard to realize that 
one of that ignorant race could so far 
overcome his superstitious fears as to in- 
habit a spot of such evil repute as this 
dark breathing-hole of the earth. 

Taking a torch from the fire, he ap- 
proached the prostrate figure which had 
so startled him at first, and commenced 
removing the blanket in which the sleeper 
had, like a genuine African, carefully en- 
veloped his head. It took a good many 
hard thumps and kicks to wake him, and 
when at last he opened his eyes, he started, 
with a cry of anguish, to his feet, then, 
falling upon his knees, began in piteous 
accents to plead for mercy. 

“For de love o’ de good Lord God, 
massa, hab messy on a poor nigger!” 
implored the miserable fugitive, fancying 


124 


A FAAfILF SECRET. 


himself captured by the negro-hunters. 
“ I was wrong for run away ; I was wrong 
for leave Mass’ Julian ; I was wrong for 
steal Misser Bruen’s meat,” glancing 
anxiously at the “ sides o’ bacon.” I 
know all dat been wrong ; but, for de name 
o’ de good Lord, massa, hab some messy, 
and no give me up to Mass’ Julian, — no 
gi’me up wi’out a word o’ messy. I 
oughtn’t to a’ runned away, I knows I 
oughtn’t : but Mass’ Julian be such a hard 
man, — hab some messy, good massa, hab 
messy !” and the poor negro’s teeth fairly 
chattered with terror, as he writhed in 
the dust at the white man’s feet. 

“ You poor fool,” said Boby, gently 
loosing the sable hands that were clasped 
about his knees. I am a runaway my- 
self, and Julian Harfleur” — he almost 
gnashed his teeth as he uttered the name 
— “is the last man on the face of the earth 
that I would seek now; and when we do 
meet again, it will be to send him forth 
a fugitive and a wanderer, such as he has 
made you and me.” 

The last words were spoken more to 
himself than to the negro ; but, from the 
fierce vehgnence with which they were 
uttered, it was clear to the dull brain of 
the latter that the man before him was no 
friend to his master. It was some time, 
however, before Roby could pacify him 
sufficiently to get a coherent sentence out 
of him. In the mean time, calling his 
companions, they all three sat down by 
the fire, and fell upon Cuflee’s hoard with 
the appetites of famished wolves. When 
they had somewhat appeased their hun- 
ger, they turned their attention once more 
to the negro, who sat watching them the 
while in wide-mouthed wonder. 

“ Now, Cuffee,” said Roby, with a gleam 
of humor in his face, that would crop out 
now and then, even in the most desper- 
ate situations, “ you seem to have been a 
very industrious rogue. How long have 
you been living here?” 

The negro scratched his head, and, after 
pondering over the matter for a few sec- 
onds, answered, — 

“ It must be nigh on to three months, 
sah.” 

“What’s your name?” 

“ Grigg Mullins, sah. Mullins is my 
enti ties.” 

“ Your entitles P"* 

“ Yes, sah. I nothin’ but Grigg all de 
week in de cotton-patch, but when I for 
dress up on Sundays and go to church, 
de black folks all say, ‘ How you do, 
Misser Mullins?’ Dat’s my entitles.” 

“ And you belong to ” Roby paused. 


and the smile that Grigg’ s explanation 
had brought to his lips died away. 

“ Mass’ Julian Harfleur, sah,” said the 
negro, with an involuntary shudder, 
finishing the sentence for him. “ He be 
a hard man. Mass’ Julian be, an’ every- 
body know it. He been a poor man 
when our young missis marry him, what 
never hab no niggers o’ his own, and so 
him dunno how for treat black folks. 
Poor buckrah always mean to black folks. 
If t’other one had done come back what 
Miss Nettie want for her husband, be 
been a good massa to us. De white folks 
all say he been a bad man, what run off 
an’ leP her; but he always mighty good 
to black folks, — -just like ole massa be, 
and Misser Bruen, and Judge Dalton, 
and all dem quality genlemen what been 
used to hab niggers all dey life, and I 
don’t b’lieve him been no ole poor buckrah, 
what ole massa call him. Ah, if he 
hadn’t gone off and got hissef killed, 
dis nigger wouldn’t be no runaway dis 
day.” 

Roby suddenly rose and retired to one 
of the dark recesses of the cavern. Some- 
thing in the agitation of his manner 
seemed to alarm the negro. 

“I ain’t mean no harm, massa,” he 
began, deprecatingly, as Roby resumed 
his seat by the fire. “ I ain’t no disre- 
spect to Mass’ Julian, and I don’t mean 
for to talk ’bout t’other one no more. 
’Twas all ’long o’ talkin’ ’bout him to 
Misser Tadpole dat Mass’ Julian hab me 
put under de screw.” 

“Under the screw,” said Lawler; 
“ what’s that?” 

“ De screw, dat whar dey packs cotton. 
Dey put you in de box jest so,” doubling 
himself up in a posture that was neither 
sitting, nor standing, nor lying. “ Dey 
let de screw down on you jist so low you 
can’t move, and den dey lef 3"Ou dar all 
day and all night, and when you git out, 
Misser Tadpole he come and preach at 
you ’bout your sins.” 

“ That man Harfleur would see his 
own mother sawn asunder without a 
shudder,” said Roby, “if it served his 
purpose. Oh, my God, what a thing it 
is to be defenseless in his hands !” He 
pressed his fingers to his brow, and 
groaned aloud with uncontrollable an- 
guish. His comrades looked startled. 

“And you say he’s one o’ the men pur- 
suing of us, cap’en ?” asked Lawler. 

“ Yes, I think so,” said Roby, in a 
tone of indifference which showed it 
was no sense of personal danger that 
disquieted him ; then, as if desirous of 


FILTHY LUCRE. 


125 


changinor the subject, he turned to Grigg 
and asked, with forced jocularity, — 

“ How came you to hide in this den, 
Grigg? Weren’t you afraid the devil 
would catch you?” 

“Yes, sah, massa,” answered Grigg; 
“I mighty ’feered at first; but when I 
hear de hounds a cornin’ closer an’ closer, 
an’ when I think how massa gwine 
look when I’se brought to him, an’ how 
he gwine say, ^ Take him to de over- 
seer,’ an’ how de overseer gwine say, 

^ Put him in de screw,’ I ain’t thought no 
more ’tall ’bout no devil, but jest jump 
right in de cave, and den I see dere ain’t 
be no Satam here.” 

“ You must know the cave well by this 
time,” observed Roby. 

“ Yes, sah ; dere ain’t no sort o’ sperrits 
in here.” 

“ And how big is it ?” 

“ Tain’t got no eend.” 

“ You’ve oeen a long way down there ?” 
pointing towards the back of the cave. 

“ Better’n six mile.” 

“ How do you know you went six 
miles ?” 

“ ’Cause de place whar I come out at is 
way down on Misser Elmore’s plantation, 
and dat been always called seven mile 
from Sandowne.” 

The three white men fixed their eyes 
eagerly upon the face of the negro. 

“How!” exclaimed Roby; “is there 
another place to get out of this cave 
besides the one we got in at?” 

“ I done made one,” said Grigg, with a 
grin of pleasure. “ You see, massa, I 
been on easy all de time for fear some- 
body come in here, since dere ain’t no 
Satam here, and so I keep a lookin’ for 
some other way to git out ; and I keeps 
a-gwine, and a-gwine, and a-gwine tell I 
comes to whar I sees some roots a-hangin’, 
and den I knows de top o’ de ground ain’t 
been fur off ; an’ so I digs, an’ digs, an’ 
digs for more’n two week, tell at las’ I 
comes out right in de side of a big lime- 
sink ; den I hide de hole I made wi’ a rock 
and some brush so nobody ever find it.” 

“And you know all the country round, 
well ?” 

“ Know it? I knows it like a huntin’- 
dog. De river ain’t a hunderd yard off 
from whar I come out; and many’s de 
lYight I’se been miles down it a-fishin’, in 
Misser Elmore’s boat, and back agin afore 
dav.” 

The fugitives regarded each other with 
sparkling eyes. 

“ Do you always find the boat on the 
river when you go there ?” asked Roby. ' 


“ Yes, sah. All de genlemen ’long de 
river-bank got boats ; easy as dirt to find 
one.” 

Roby rose and faced the negro. “ Look 
at me, Grigg,” said he, impressively. “ I 
do not promise to set you free nor to 
enrich you with your master’s spoils. I 
have no right to do that ; but save you 
from injustice and cruelty I can. Now, 
Grigg, would you like to go where your 
Mass’ Julian will never set eyes on you 
again ; or where, if he did, he wouldn’t 
dare to raise his finger against you ?” 

“ Oh, massa I” cried Grigg, almost 
speechless with delight. 

“Well, then, guide us to this opening; 
show us where to find a boat ; follow us ; 
and if we ever reach a place of safety 
ourselves, you shall share it with us.” 

“ De Lord bless you, massa ! de Lord 
be praised 1” And Grigg fell on his knees 
in the overflowing thankfulness of* his 
heart. 

Full of hope, the tired fugitives stretched 
their weary limbs upon the mould of the 
cavern, and, lulled by a sweet sense of 
peace and security that they had not 
known for many a week, fell asleep just 
as day was dawning upon the outer earth. 

In the gray dawn of that same morn- 
ing a rider was urging his wearied steed 
UT) the winding avenue that led to the 
AFhite House. His face was pale and 
haggard, with a stern, set look about the 
mouth and a fierce fire flashing in the 
dark eyes, — usually so flxed in their cold 
steely glitter. 

The sleepy groom, waiting at the stable- 
door, sprang trembling to his feet as his 
master halted and flung the reins into his 
hand. He stared hard at the horse’s 
reeking sides, and shook his w'oolly head 
as his master stalked moodily away to the 
house and bolted himself in his own room. 

“ Davy,” said the groom, in an ominous 
whisper to the stable-boy, “ there’ll be 
bad times for the folks to-day. Mass’ 
Julian’s been a-h unting, and ain’t took 
nothin’, and you know he’s always humor- 
some when he misses the game.” 


CHAPTER XXYII. 

FILTH V LUCRE. 

When Audley returned to Sandowne 
he found a note from Claude Harfleur, 
informing him of the arrival of his 


126 


A FAMILY SECRET, 


mother and sister, who she had con- 
trived should be her guests, and inviting 
him to join them at the White House. 
Upon hearing this news George Dalton 
set out immediately, under plea of urgent 
business engagements, for South Ambury, 
where he established himself in his lodg- 
ings, and resisted all inducements to re- 
turn to the neighborhood of the White 
House. He accounted to Mr. Lruen for 
his absence by various pretexts of busi- 
ness, — an accommodating fiction, worn so 
threadbare by dissipated young men that 
it is a wonder how the honest old folks 
can still be imposed on by it. But Mr. 
Bruen believed in George as firmly as in 
the last quack medicine, and with about 
as much reason the world thought ; and 
while that young man was scandalizing 
the respectability of South Ambury with 
one of his wildest sprees, the old gen- 
tleman was saying complacently to his 
wife, — 

‘‘ I tell you what, Margaret, I was 
right; that boy’s coming round now. 
Every note I get from him is full of 
nothing but business, and he’s so given 
up to it he can’t even find time to spend 
a Sunday at home. By gad, sir, — and I 
beg your pardon for swearing, — he’ll be 
as good a business-man as I am before he 
dies.” 

Though Mr. Bruen had often been 
warned that his nephew was not quite as 
“steady” as could be desired, he never 
doubted that the young man would “ come 
round,” as he expressed it, in good time. 
Mr. Bruen never lost faith in the virtue 
of growing older and getting married, 
though George had now reached an age at 
which men are usually as married and set- 
tled as they are ever going to be. As Mr. 
Bruen himself was growing older quite as 
steadily as his nephew, the chasm between 
them was not narrowed by the young man’ s 
advance ; and the old one hardly realized 
that he was not still a boy, with ample 
time to sow his wild oats and then arrive 
at years of discretion. He would give 
George awful blowings up now and then 
about his goings on, which the young 
man received with a coolness and non- 
chalance that invariably silenced the old 
gentleman’s artillery for want of fire to 
touch it off*. 

Audley Malvern was too well acquainted 
with his friend’s character not to guess 
at the true cause of George’s absence from 
home. He had tried his best to warn 
Julia in time to keep her from accepting 
Claude’s invitation, but the letter he at 
last got written miscarried, and Julia had 


the mortification of finding herself, when 
it was too late, a guest in the house of 
George Dalton’s friends. She could n.ot 
even avoid frequent visits to Sandowne, 
for Mr. Bruen, who knew nothing of her 
connection with George, took a great 
fancy to her and insisted on having her 
often at his house. 

No mention had been made of Audley’ s 
sister between the two young men since 
their first interview on the night of his 
arrival at Sandowne, but he had seen 
enough then to convince him that George’s 
resentment, like his wrong, was incurable. 
The very depth of his love added bitterness 
to his anger against the woman who had 
trifled with it. Audley appreciated the 
inherent beauties of his friend’s charac- 
ter, warped and blurred as they were by 
long indulgence in habits of vice. He 
felt that George would never have volun- 
tarily deserted Julia for any earthly con- 
sideration. She might have lost fortune, 
station, beauty, reason itself, still, that 
strong, faithful heart would never have 
swerved in its allegiance. Beauty and 
wealth had lured him all his life in vain : 
nothing but her own hand had power to 
snap the chain that bound him to her, 
and with it to loosen the evil genius that 
lurks in some hidden corner of every hu- 
man heart. 

George was very far from being what 
women term a manageable man. He 
was a strong, original character, with a 
vein of eccentricity about him that few 
people could understand, much less pre- 
tend to influence. Julia Malvern was, 
perhaps, the only woman in the world 
capable of exercising sway over such a 
complex, contradictory nature, and hers 
had been unbounded, both for good and 
evil. A woman of rare intellectual en- 
dowments, Julia’s lofty ambition gave to 
George’s indolent, but far from feeble 
temper, just the spur that it needed. In 
person she was not remarkable for beauty, 
but there was a majestic, queenly grace 
about her that accorded exactly with her 
character. She was not a great belle in 
the ordinary acceptation of the word, nor 
was she even generally popular. Ordi- 
nary men were afraid of her, for they felt 
her superiority, and there is nothing that 
the mediocre man resents so bitterly as 
superiority in a woman. But she never 
failed to win whenever she chose to exert 
herself, and if the mass of mankind were 
not her adorers, it was simply because 
she did not think them worth the trouble 
of gaining. She used to say it was a 
greater feat to captivate one fool than 


FILTHY LUCRE. 


127 


twenty wise men; and in her case this 
was no doubt true, for to Julia’s lofty na- 
ture it was easier to soar than to crawl. 

But this aspiring disposition, the germ 
of so much that is grand and noble in 
man, whose career affords opportunities 
for its gratification, is apt to degenerate in 
women, confined as they are to a meagre 
sphere, into a sordid, ignoble passion. 
Julia Malvern, suddenly deprived of the 
social autocracy to which she was born, 
and which, philosophize as we will, it is 
impossible to maintain under the present 
constitution of our social system without 
money, keenly felt her altered circum- 
stances, and her ambition, diverted from 
more congenial fields, was now intent 
only upon regaining the brilliant but 
hollow pre-eminence she had lost. Am- 
bitious to a fault, even in her better days, 
all her lofty aspirations had now degen- 
erated into cold worldliness, under which 
the warm and womanly part of her na- 
ture seemed for the time to lie torpid, — 
torpid only, let us hope, not dead. 

When Audley thought of his friend’s 
wrecked and wasted life, he felt disposed, 
tenderly as he loved his sister, to attach 
to her her full measure of blame. And 
then, after all, to go and take up wdth an 
inflated old booby like Bagpipe ! She, 
who had refused some of the best offers 
in the land, jilted and ruined a splendid 
fellow like George, and then to go and 
marry a confounded old ass for his money ! 
What creatures women are ! It is true, 
he meant to marry for money himself 
some day, but then he Avas going to 
choose some woman he could be decently 
in love with, — indeed, he intended to do 
the thing in quite a genteel way, and 
Avhy couldn’t Julia have some sense about 
it, too ? She was a sensible woman in 
everything else, why should she. turn 
fool about the most important step in her 
life? The more he thought it over the 
more irritated he felt, and he determined 
to give Julia a talk ; not that there was 
any hope oi making it up between her 
and George, — liis bad habits were too con- 
firmed now to think of such a thing. 
Audley could not wed his sister to such 
a profligate, even if it wefe possible to 
close the breach that pride, wrong, and 
mutual resentment had opened between 
them. But it might not be too late to 
bring her to her senses about old Bag- 
pipe, and, at any rate, he was irritated and 
dissatisfied with things in general, and 
what is the use of having a sister if you 
can’t scold her when you are out of 
humor? 


The first few days after Julia’s arrival 
were so occupied in receiving calls and 
exchanging civilities with the neighbor- 
ing families, that the brother and sister 
had no opportunities for confidential in- 
terviews. The first occasion that pre- 
sented itself for a good private talk was 
one evening while they were on a visit to 
Sandowne. Audley had stepped on the 
piazza l;o smoke his after-dinner cigar; 
Julia followed, and, locking her arm in 
his, walked up and down the piazza with 
him while he smoked. They gossiped 
away for some time on indifferent topics, 
till Audley, taking advantage of the 
pause, introduced the subject of his 
thoughts by avsking, — 

“ Well, Julia, what do you intend doing 
with old Bagpipe ? Are you really going 
to have him, or are you only fooling 
him ?” 

Julia’s countenance changed. Fool- 
ing him,” she ansAvered, in a bitter tone ; 

fooling him worse than I ever fooled 
any man before, for I am going to let 
him marry me.” 

“ And when is this precious engage- 
ment to be consummated?” 

“Oh, I don’t know,” replied Julia, 
Avith a gesture of impatience, as though 
she would fain avoid the subject. “ Some 
time about the first of May, I suppose.” 

“ I would suggest the first of April as 
a more appropriate time,” said Audley, 
with a sneer. “Julia, Avhy will you 
persist in choosing for a husband that 
miserable piece of empty-headed pompos- 
ity? It is impossible that you can en- 
tertain a particle of respect for him.” 

“ Impossible ? Of course it is. I am 
not fool enough to respect such a man,” 
said Julia, with a bitter laugh. 

“ And yet you are going to commit 
a greater folly,” replied her brother. 
“ IIa\"e you no other admirers, Julia, that 
you must put up with that inflated old 
gas-bag?” 

“None that can offer such solid argu- 
ments in faA^or of matrimony.” 

“ And pray what are some of those ar- 
guments ?” 

“ Three seasons in Paris or London, 
Avhichever I choose, ten thousand a year 
pin-money, and all expenses paid.” 

“ Umph I the terms seem liberal enough, 
but Avhen you think of the husband that 
must be thrown in to complete the bar- 
gain, I can’t help thinking you might 
have made a better speculation.” 

“Might have made, — ah, yes,” said 
Julia, with a half-suppressed sigh ; “but 
you forget that at twenty-eight the mar- 


128 


J FJ3/IZr SECRET, 


kot Talue of a woman is on the decline. 
In less than two years I shall have 
turned the dark corner that leads around 
thirty, — that horrible era in a woman’s 
life when she begins to be unquestion- 
ably middle-aged, and it is not likely T 
shall bring even ten thousand a year with 
a gouty husband after that.” 

“Julia, do you desire nothing better 
than so many thousands a year?” 

“ It is not what I desire that is the 
question now,” said Julia, sadly. “My 
life is ruined and wasted any way, and I 
am only choosing to be rich and miser- 
able instead of poor and miserable. Be- 
sides,” she added, suddenly changing her 
tone to one of forced levity, “ what dif- 
ference does it make after all? You see 
people marry for money every day, as 
well as for love, and they all jog along 
together in pretty much the same hum- 
drum fashion by the time they have been 
ten years married. The heroine of a 
love romance must come down at last to 
minding babies and sewing on buttons, 
woman’s inevitable destiny, as prosaically 
as any of us; indeed, I am not sure but, 
in the long run, Mrs. Major-General Bag- 
pipe, Avith her velvet and Venice point, 
her villa on the Hudson, her palace in 
Madison Square, her brilliant salons in 
Paris, will get quite as much of the 
romance of married life as any poor little 
dupe of a love-match, who wakes up 
after the honeymoon and finds herself 
tied to one who is but a mortal man after 
all, and not a hero or a demi-god at all. 
If no man is a hero to his valet, Avho can 
be one to his wife?” 

“ But I am not insisting upon your 
marrying a hero or a demi-god,” said 
Audley. “ I am as skeptical about them 
as you, perhaps. Still, a man more the 
reverse of a hero than old Bagpipe it 
would be impossible to name ; a disgust- 
ing* old libertine, of twice your years, 
who has already buried three wives ; a 
fool, a knave, and a coward to boot.” 

“For that reason I feel the less com- 
unction in marrying him,” said Julia. 

I would not have the heart to take in a 
decent man so mercilessly, but, if old 
General Bagpipe is all you say, he de- 
serves no better than to be converted 
into an appendage for paying bills and 
covering indiscretions.” 

“ Julia ! Julia !” cried her brother, seiz- 
ing both hands and looking her sternly 
in the face, “if I really thought you 
meant what your words imply I would 
tie a millstone about your neck and cast 
you into the river yonder. But lay aside 


your levity, my sister, and think what 
will be the consequences of this marriage 
even in a worldly point of view. I am 
not at all disposed to underrate the advan- 
tages of wealth, you know, and would 
never countenance a mesalliance for you, 
as regards either fortune or family, any 
more than I would think of making one 
myself; but what satisfaction can all the 
allurements of wealth give when you 
are tied to a man whom all decent peo- 
ple must despise? Sacrifice love for 
money if you will, but honor never. 
Ah, Julia ! I make no pretense at being 
a philosopher, I do not set up to despise 
the good things of this world, but I can- 
not help thinking that stupid, honest, 
contented poA^erty is better than the life 
to Avhich you are about to sell yourself.” 

Audley’ s heart Avas nearer right than 
he knew, and he pleaded for the truth 
AAuth an earnestness that would have 
astonished himself if he had stopped to 
think at all about it. Julia drew her 
hands from her brother’s, and pressed 
them a moment nervously to her fore- 
head. 

“ Contented poverty !” she repeated, in 
a scornful, almost angry tone. “ I hate 
the canting, ignoble words ! Content- 
ment is the virtue of base, contracted 
minds, and as for poverty, you may be 
crushed and broken under it, but there is x 
no such thing as contentment with it. 

I have tried it noAv for four years, and 
the more I knoAv of it the less contented 
I grow.” 

“ I have tried it, too, Julia, as long as 
you, and ” 

“ Ah, but with you men it is so differ- 
ent,” interrupted Julia. “ There are so 
many careers open to you, so many doors 
of escape, that you are not obliged to 
marry for money. Your career has not 
been cut short by our rcA^erse of fortune. 
You have earned glory and fame in spite 
of our poverty, and that is better than 
riches. But the social arena is the only 
one open to woman’s ambition ; and who 
can enter there without money ? There 
are no honorable professions open to us ; 
the utmost Ave can do for ourselves is to 
maintain a plodding respectability, and 
I hate respectability. I would not care 
if I were a poissarde, or a washerwoman, 
for there is something admirable in the 
sturdy Bohemianism that snaps its fin- 
gers in the face of gentility and lives in 
blessed ignorance of respectability. Or 
if I had a literary genius like Mme. de 
Stael, or a A^oice like Kuth Ilarfleur, I 
could endure being a Avoman and poor, 


FILTHY LUCRE. 


129 


for genius knows no sex, and I could 
then shake off the trammels of mine. 
Even if 1 were a piece of plodding me- 
diocrity, suited to the mental tread-mill 
of the school-room, I might be contented 
and eminently respectable *, but being 
neither a genius nor an imbecile, there 
is no place for me in the economy of 
woman’s existence. There is no middle 
ground for us women except marriage, — 
no door of escape from the miseries of 
poverty and dependence. I have tried to 
open others for myself. I have tried 
every kind of ‘ honest labor’ that a woman 
in my situation could put her hand to, 
but am utterly unsuited to them all. 
For tAvo horrible years I submitted my 
mind to the tread-mill and taught in a 
country school, but outraged all my 
patrons, and finally lost my place and 
my reputation, because I couldn’t help 
boxing the ears of their precious off- 
spring, — horrid little wretches with dirty 
finger-nails and smelling of perspiration ; I 
wonder I could touch them. I rose a step 
after that, and turned modiste^ and might 
have redeemed my fortune trimming bon- 
nets, but everything went wrong because 
I could not learn to keep my accounts 
straight. Then I tried writing in a petty 
Government office, but flirted Avith the 
head of the department, and his wife 
got me turned out. Next I tried teach- 
ing music, but lost all my scholars before 
the first quarter was ended because — 
well, I suppose it must have been be- 
cause I didn’t know anything about 
music myself. And so, now, here I am, 
a pensioner on the bounty of George 
Dalton’s relations, as if I had not sub- 
mitted to humiliations enough without 
that. Oh, Audley, can you blame me 
for marrying anybody to escape the like 
of this ?” She covered her face with 
her hands and sobbed aloud. 

Audley bent down and kissed his sis- 
ter’s forehead. A pang of wounded pride 
wrung his own bosom, but he would not 
add to Julia’s humiliation by confessing 
his OAvn. 

No, no, sister,” he said, with affected 
cheeriness, folding his arms tenderly 
round her; “things look bad, but they 
are not desperate yet. Remember that 
you have a brother, and though the 
claims of my country and the walls of a 
prison have barred me from you long, yet 
if ever my hands are free, I hope, Julia, 

I will be man enough at least to raise 
ynu above the necessity of marrying old 
Bagpipe. Now that you are here it can’t 
be helped, but you need not stay long. I 

9 


knoAV where I can find employment that 
will make you at least independent till I 
can come back and take care of you my- 
self. I have a friend in South Ambury, — 
a Major Maelstrom, — Avho can, no doubt, 
give you a place. He has several female 
clerks in his department, and as he is a 
single man, you can flirt with him as 
much as you choose without any danger 
of being turned out. In fact, if you are 
bent upon speculating in the matrimonial 
market, I think you Avould find him a 
much better investment than old Bag- 
pipe. He is a rich old bachelor, generous 
and good-natured, and though he does 
smell of stale tobacco and put his knife 
in his mouth when he eats, that’s not 
half so bad as old Bagpipe’s gouty feet 
and perfumed wig. I commend the pro- 
ject to your thoughtful consideration.” 

“ My mind is already made up,” said 
Julia, firmly; “but come,” she con- 
tinued, assuming her brother’s bantering 
tone, “I’m tired of talking about myself, 
it’s your turn now to undergo a little 
catechising. Have you no ventures of 
your own in the matrimonial market? It 
is high time you were thinking about 
‘ getting settled,’ as the old women say.” 

“ Well, I have been looking around me 
a little since I came here,” said Malvern, 
suppressing a yawn, “ and I should not 
be surprised if I came to business before 
long. What do you think of Miss Har 
fleur?” 

“ Which one?” 

“ The beauty, of course.” 

“ That’s too indefinite ; they are both 
so handsome that it might easily be a dis- 
puted point which is prettiest.” 

“ Oh, the younger sister is the recog- 
nized beauty.” 

“Indeed! I am glad you mean her; I 
was afraid it might be the other.” 

“ Afraid? Why do you say that?” asked 
Audley, with sudden petulance. 

“ Because,” answered Julia, “ I knoAV 
of old your hankering after forbidden 
fruit, and the stain upon this young 
lady’s birth, and her absolute want of 
fortune, render her sufficiently ineligible 
to turn your head.” 

“ So you have dived to the bottom of 
that scandal already, have you?” said 
Audley, sharply. “ Pray, Julia, who re- 
tailed this precious bit of gossip to you?” 

“ Mamma.” 

“ Mother 1 And how the deuce did she 
get at it ? Surely she would not be guilty 
of prying into the family secrets of her 
host.” 

“No; but mamma and Mr. Bruen used 


130 


A FAMILY SECRET, 


to be great friends, you know, when they 
were young, though they have not heard 
of each other for years until now, and he 
took her into his confidence as soon as 
she came. I half suspect his motive was 
that she might put you on your guard, 
for nobody can help seeing how you ad- 
mire the girl 5 but I see you have been 
warned already.*’ 

“ Oh, yes, I’m all right,” said Audley, 
laughing; “I don’t admire her more than 
I do every pretty^ girl I meet; and, be- 
sides, I am falling in love with the younger 
sister as fast as I can. She’s a tremendous 
catch, and I’ve pretty well made up my 
mind to take her.” 

And I suppose there is no doubt 
about her taking you ?” said Julia, with a 
touch of sarcasm in her voice. 

Audley had never thought of that be- 
fore, but now that he did think of it, he 
saw no reason to doubt, and answered 
accordingly, — 

“ No, I believe not.” 

“ That’s like the abominable vanity of 
your sex,” cried Julia; “I almost wish 
she’d refuse you, just for saying that; 
but no, then you’d fall a prey to her 
charming sister, that mamma is so uneasy 
about. She has said to me a dozen times 
a day, ‘ My dear, you know how fond 
Audley is of music, and he always did 
have a fancy for blondes, and you know 
he can be very unmanageable sometimes, 
when he takes a whim. Really, it’s a 
shame that these penniless beauties are 
permitted to be turned loose upon so- 
ciety.’ ” 

“ That’s so !” cried Audley, laughing. 

They ought to be kept in barrels, and 
fed through the bung-hole, till they are 
too old to lure poor devils like me to their 
destruction.” 

‘‘ But think, what would become of 
me, then?” said Julia, archly. 

“ Oh, some fellow would knock the 
head off your barrel to get you out,” 
said Audley, caressing her. But no 
matter,” he added, “I’m all right with- 
out the barrel — you need feel no uneasi- 
ness on my account.” 

“ I never have,” said Julia, proudly ; 
“ though I can’t help pretending to, some- 
times, just to worry mamma; but my 
brother will never disgrace his family by 
a mesalliance^ when he knows that we all 
look to him to build up its fortunes once 
more.” 

“ By marrying a rich wife,” added 
Audley, with a sardonic laugh ; and some- 
how lie began to feel contemptibly small 
in his own estimation, and for the first 


time in his life he felt ashamed of his pet 
theory of matrimony. 

“ Oh, but this is not a flagrant, vul- 
garly, mercenary match like mine,” said 
Julia. “Claude Ilarfleur is a woman 
that men would go mad about if she were 
as poor as Ruth or I, and surely money 
cannot detract from her charms.’^ 

“No, certainly not,” said Audley, ab- 
sently. “ I am very creditably in love 
with her already. I’ll go over to the 
White House and bring the matter to a 
crisis to-morrow morning.” 

He kissed his sister once more, then 
turned and walked moodily away to his 
own room. 


CHAPTER XXVIII. 

HOW AUDLEY MALVERN COMMENCED BRING- 
ING THINGS TO A CRISIS. 

Next morning, Audley mounted the 
riding-horse that was kept always at his 
disposal and started ofi* for the AVhite 
House, with the meritorious intention of 
following up the good impression he had 
already made upon its fair young mis- 
tress. He must have been deeply ab- 
sorbed in reflections by the way, for on 
approaching the little log church that 
stood on the confines of Mr. Harfleur’s 
estate, he started, like one awaking from 
a dream, at the sound of Ruth Harfleur’s 
voice within, chanting a plaintive requiem 
from Handel’s “ Messiah.” He reined in 
his steed a moment, then spurred it on 
again till he was almost out of hearing, 
then turned back, paused, wavered, and 
finally sprang to the ground, and, throw- 
ing the lines across his arm, advanced to 
the gate, and, resting his elbows on the 
railing, stood listening to the siren’s 
voice. 

Ruth was in the habit of resorting fre- 
quently to this quiet spot, which, in spite 
of the alarm she had received on her first 
visit, seemed to possess a strange sort of 
fascination for her. She never ventured 
there.alone after that singular rencontre, 
but always found a willing companion in 
Bruen. The boy’s first capricious fancy 
for his sister had ripened into the tenderest 
affection, which, if disposed to be a little 
tyrannical and exacting at times, was 
warm and sincere, and very precious to 
the lonely exile whose life had been so 
barren of tender ties. 


BBINGING THINGS TO A CRISIS, 


131 


Ptuth had early discovered in the boy a 
wonderful talent for art. It is true his 
sketches were for the most part rude and 
grotesque ; nor were the subjects of them 
generally of an exalted character, being 
confined chiefly to caricatures of the pious 
young man called Tadpole, burlesques of 
his school-fellows, of his aunt and uncle 
even, of everybody, in short, except his 
father, with whose features he had never 
dared to take such a liberty since a 
servant had once detected Mr. Harfleur’s 
face on the fly-leaf of an old account book, 
attached to a form the very facsimile of 
Bruen’s own. 

But whenever the boy’s genius got the 
better of his malice and led him to loftier 
studies, his drawings — notwithstanding 
a certain crudeness and want of finish — 
possessed a vividness and originality that 
gave promise of rare powers. His genius 
had shared the common neglect that left 
all his gentler qualities to be choked by 
the rank outgrowth of a morbid and pas- 
sionate nature, but it was too deeply 
rooted to be quite trampled out. He had 
never been instructed in the barest rudi- 
ments of drawing; and no one — not even 
himself — had any suspicion of the won- 
derful power that lay dormant within 
him until Ruth, one day, taking up a 
paper on which he appeared to have been 
scribbling, found on it a singularly life- 
like and picturesque sketch of the weird 
old negro Chloe. Though nothing of a 
painter herself, Ruth’s aesthetic mind 
recognized at once the signs of genius 
lurking in Bruen’s crude delineation, and 
she set to work to give him such instruc- 
tion in the elements of drawing as she 
had herself received. The boy was de- 
lighted, and, even with this meagre tui- 
tion, made rapid improvement in his art. 
He seemed inspired, all at once, with a 
genuine enthusiasm for it, and his con- 
ceptions became purer and more elevated. 
He seemed to draw a kind of inspiration 
from music, and would make his sister 
sit at the piano for hours, while he was 
busy with his pencil. 

In fine weather they were both fond 
of spending their mornings at the little 
church among the pines ; and when they 
tired of reading or talking together Ruth 
would seat herself at the organ, while 
Bruen took his station at an open window 
and busied himself with pencil and port- 
folio. On the particular morning to which 
this chapter refers, he became so absorbed 
in his work that he seemed not to perceive 
when Ruth ceased playing until she rose 
from the organ and went and laid her 


hand on his shoulder. As she did so she 
stooped to examine his work, and saw 
that he was just finishing a pencil sketch 
of herself as Juliet. He was fond of in- 
vesting the people he knew with fanciful 
characters ; and Ruth was so accustomed 
to seeing her own features figuring on the 
shoulders of nymphs, fairies, saints, ma- 
donnas, and the like, that she was not at 
all surprised at the garb he had given 
her ; but there Avas a beauty and graceful- 
ness in the sketch that struck her more 
than any of his efforts had done. The 
listless abandon of the attitude, the warm, 
impassioned expression of the upturned 
face that seemed to glow with the very 
soul of love, impressed her so that she 
could not repress an exclamation of ad- 
miration. Bruen laughed. 

“ I am glad you like your own face so 
well,” he said: “can’t you see that it is 
you ?” 

“ Taken from mine ; yes, but you don’t 
really mean that I ever look like that?” 

Bruen nodded. “ Sometimes when you 
are playing that symphony of Beethoven’s 
that Colonel Malvern admires so much, 
or that love-song from lone, — especially 
if he sings it Avith you.” 

Ruth felt that the boy was eying her 
closely, and turned aAvay her face to hide 
her changing color. 

“You have made me out a great 
beauty,” she continued, in a careless tone, 
appearing not to notice his allusion to 
Malvern ; “ but I have no right to be Amin 
about it, since your hand can beautify 
Avhatever it touches.” 

Bruen was silent a moment, then 
shoAmd the picture from him with a sigh. 

“What’s the matter now?” said Ruth, 
taking up the portfolio he had throAvn 
aside. “ Are you out of humor Avith 
your work already?” 

“Not Avith my work ; no, I love that 
better every day I live. I was only 
thinking how hard it is that one who can, 
as you say, beautify whatever he touches, 
— one who worships the beautiful ; who 
lives in it and for it, — should himself be 
Avhat I am. My own creations seem a 
perpetual reproach to me,” said the boy, 
glancing doAvn at his shrunken, mis- 
shaped limbs. “ And that this should 
have happened, of all the world, to one 
who aspires to be an artist!” he added, 
bitterly. 

“ And yet worse things have happened 
to artists,” said Ruth, running her fingers 
carelessly through his beautiful hair. 
“ There is Beethoven, whose music you 
admire so much, he was deaf as a stone 


132 


A FAMILY SECRET. 


at thirty, so that he could never hear a 
musical sound.” 

“ And did not his art die out of him 
then ?” 

“ By no means. The stupendous mass 
in D, and the beautiful symphony that 
Colonel Malvern admires so much, were 
both composed Avhen he could not tell the 
sound of a kettle-drum from a guitar. Art 
lives in the soul, Bruen ; and if the soul 
of the artist be pure and his faith strong, 
he can create a world, a life of beauty, 
for himself.” 

“That all sounds very fine,” said the 
boy, impatiently ; “ but you can’t make 
me believe that artists don’t feel their 
personal defects more keenly than other 
people. I can’t tell how it is, but you 
would know, Buth, if you were yourself 
a victim to the very misfortune that you 
were calculated to feel most bitterly of 
all. Suppose, for instance, that you were 

deaf, like Beethoven ” 

Or suppose you were blind, would 
not that be worse than ” 

‘‘Why not suppose something a little 
more cheerful?” cried a laughing voice 
outside ; and, looking round, they saw 
Audley Malvern standing in the open 
door. 

“ I have been eavesdropping,” he con- 
tinued, making a step or two towards 
them ; “ but as I have not overheard any 
secrets, I hope I may be forgiven and 
allowed to present myself in a more 
respectable character. May I ?” he asked, 
pausing, with his hand on the back of a 
pew, and looking at Ruth. 

Bruen scowled and turned away. Ruth 
nodded assent and turned away too, but 
not wdth a scowl. Availing himself of 
her permission, Audley seated himself on 
the pew close at her side, and, taking 
Bruen’ s portfolio from her lap, proceeded 
leisurely to examine the contents. Aud- 
ley had beheld all the rarest Avorks of art 
of the Old World, and, being a thorough 
connoisseur, his cultivated eye imme- 
diately detected the evidences of genius 
that abounded in Bruen’ s sketches. His 
first feeling of surprise was soon suc- 
ceeded by one of amusement at the free 
-"Use the boy had made of his various 
acquaintances and the significant charac- 
ters with which he had invested them, 
though he was not particularly edified at 
detecting his OAvn features under the dis- 
guises of Don Juan and Paris of Troy, 
Avhile he started once with a kind of ter- 
ror at the sight of Claude Harfleur’s 
beautiful face staring at him amid the 
snaky tresses of Medusa. 


While examining these crude but sin- 
gularly promising specimens of art, Aud- 
ley had gradually drawn the young 
artist into conversation. His evident 
interest in the contents of the portfolio 
had mollified Bruen somewhat and dis- 
posed him to answer civilly the first few 
questions Audley put to him. Gradually 
he became more communicative, and lis- 
tened attentively to all Malvern had to 
say. The latter was himself an accom- 
plished draughtsman. He saw the boy’s 
want of direction, and, after praising what 
was really commendable in his work, 
ventured to point out in a friendly way 
one or two of the errors that repeated 
themselves most frequently. Seeing that 
Bruen received these corrections not 
merely with a good grace, but with the 
avidity of one eager to learn, he went on 
criticising one sketch after another, and 
initiated Bruen into the mysteries of fore- 
shortening, perspective, chiaro-oscuro, and 
other technicalities of art, with such ease 
and simplicity that no one Avould ever 
have suspected those hard words to have 
anything to do with what he was talking 
about. Then he went on to speak of the 
great masters whose Avorks he had seen 
abroad, and described the masterpieces 
in the galleries of Rome and Munich, the 
marbles of the Vatican Museum, the won- 
ders of St. Peter’s and the Milan Cathe- 
dral, with a vividness and eloquence 
that charmed both his hearers. 

Suddenly he paused in the midst of his 
description of the Sisdne Chapel, and 
fixed his eyes attentively upon a little 
sketch that rested in his hand, then 
raised them deliberately to Ruth’s face. 
Bruen leaned forAvard to see what had 
attracted his attention, and recognized 
the Juliet which Ruth had, by a sudden 
impulse she could not herself have ac- 
counted for, hastily thrust into the port- 
folio as Malvern entered. 

“ You knoAV it too, I see,” said Bruen, 
following the direction of Audley’s eyes. 
“ Do you think it a good likeness?” 

“ Perfect,” said Malvern, fixing his 
eyes again on the picture. “ You have 
made an exquisite little sketch here, 
Bruen; there’s genuine inspiration in it.” 

“ So Ruth thinks ; you’d have laughed 
to hear how she was admiring her own 
face just noAV,” said Bruen, with a twin- 
kle of real boyish fun in his eye. 

“ I don’t wonder,” murmured Audley, 
stealing a glance at the fair face in 
question. 

“ Noav, Bruen,” cried his sister, blush- 
ing, “ you ought to explain that it was 


BRINGING THINGS TO A CRISIS. 


133 


not my face, but your work, I was ad- 
miring ; I scarcely observed the likeness 
at all.” 

“ It is very striking, nevertheless,” said 
Malvern; “and he has caught the ex- 
pression that I admire most.” 

“ Does she ever look at you that way?” 
asked Bruen, sharply. 

If anything could have made Ruth 
lose paitience with her brother, that ques- 
tion would have done it. She rose 
hastily, and commenced running her 
fingers over the keys of the organ to hide 
her embarrassment. Audley colored 
deeply, but did not lose his self-possession. 

“ No,” he answered, laughing. “ I 
wish to heaven she would ! but she has 
only frigid and forbidding looks for me. 
I wish you would give me this picture, 
to remind me that she is capable of look- 
ing otherwise, — may he. Miss Ilarfleur?” 

“ No,” answered Ruth, decisively. 

“ Not even if I vow and declare that it 
is only as a work of art, and not at all as 
your portrait, I value it?” 

She answered by taking the sketch 
from his hand, and shoving it, almost 
angrily, between some loose sheets of 
music lying on the organ. She was 
vexed at Bruen's impertinence, and Ruth 
could not always conceal her temper 
when it was roused. 

“She shall give it to me yet,” muttered 
Audley to himself, as he reluctantly re- 
signed the picture ; then, rising and 
standing behind her at the organ, he 
said, with an air of comic resignation, 
“Well, since you won’t let me look, I 
suppose I may listen ; let us have some 
music to console me for my disappoint- 
ment, — it is greater, perhaps,” he added, 
in an under-tone, “ than you imagine.” 

“ Here is the Funeral March from 
Samson, then, perhaps that will accord 
with your feelings,” said Ruth, resuming 
her playful manner, as she struck the 
first chords on the organ. 

“ Why is it,” said Audley, when she 
had finished, “ that all your music is so 
sad? And yet you don’t seem to be by 
nature of a melancholy temperament.” 

“ You forget, my music is not always 
melancholy ; there is the Magnificat, 
and Jubilate, and the Coronation, an- 
thems from ” 

“ Oh, but they are all in that stately 
oratorial style. Sacred music is all 
grand and stately, and you hardly ever 
play anything else *, you seem to have no 
taste for what, in the absence of a better 
term, I suppose I may style the ^ light 
literature’ of music.” 


“ I had never thought of that before,” 
said Ruth, meditatively ; “ I suppose it is 
partly due to education, and partly be- 
cause I am a born musician, and cannot 
help loving what is highest and best in 
my art. Only grand and lofty passions 
can be appropriately expressed in music : 
the burlesque has no legitimate place 
there : a comic song is a desecration, ab 
most a blasphemy.” 

“ But all lofty emotions are not neces- 
sarily religious,” said Audley. “ There 
are love, hope, — -joy itself, you must grant, 
may be a very exalted feeling.” 

“ Yes, but they all find their highest 
development in devotion. Art is religion, 
and since men have lost their faith art 
is dying out of the world. Those great 
works you have just been describing to 
us — the cartoons of Raphael, the Last 
Supper of Leonardo, the Madonnas of 
Perugino — all belong to an age of faith, 
and are symbols of the pure faith, the 
lofty devotion, of those golden days in 
which the artists lived. Nay, even those 
wonderful relics of ancient art — the Lao- 
cbon, the Apollo, the Venus de Medici — 
were inspirations of the mythology that is 
the religion of the ancients. There can 
be no art without religion, without faith, 
and that is why the classic music that I 
love is mainly devotional. But I didn’t 
mean to deliver a lecture on art,” she con- 
tinued, blushing at her own enthusiasm, 
“ and it must be getting late.” 

“ Only half-past one,” said Audley, re- 
ferring to his watch. 

“Dear me! and I hardl}^ supposed it 
was twelve yet. Come, Bruen, we must 
be going.” 

“ And may I have the pleasure of see- 
ing you home ?” asked Malvern. 

“ We are not going home now. Bruen 
and I have a little expedition to make. 
Our old friend Aunt Chloe is sick ; we 
thought we would drive over to see her, 
and then go to Sandowne to dinner. We 
shall find you at the White House when 
we return in the evening?” 

“ No, I was not going there to dinner,” 
said Audley ; “ so I’ll ride along with you, 
if you’ve no objection.” 

“ None in the world, if you don’t mind 
stopping by the way; and we sha’n’t de- 
tain you long at Aunt Chloe’s.” 

“ The longer I am detained in such 
company the better,” whispered Audley, 
as he assisted her into Bruen’ s pony 
phaeton ; and then, mounting his own 
horse, he cantered along gayly at their 
side. 


134 


A FAMILY SECRET, 


CHAPTER XXIX. 

^NEAS MAKES A DECLARATION. 

One of the few beings for whom Bruen 
Harfleur manifested affection was the old 
free negro Chloe, whom he claimed as 
his mammy. Though never officially in- 
stalled as his nurse, she had voluntarily 
undertaken that office during his neg- 
lected childhood, and her humble solici- 
tude had supplied many omissions of the 
woman Judith, to w'hose tender mercies 
he was committed by his father. Old 
Chloe had been much attached to Nettie 
Bruen and the child of her first unhappy 
union, and, when these objects of her 
humble affection were removed, had at- 
tached herself like a faithful dog to the 
poor cripple w’-hom no one else seemed 
to care for. Through all weathers she 
would make her daily pilgrimage to the 
White House, to see how her baby, as she 
called him, was doing, until he grew old 
enough to visit her instead. 

The old woman was sitting by the fire 
when Ruth arrived with her companions, 
presiding over the preparations for her 
dinner, which were conducted by a little 
negro girl that Mrs. Bruen sent to wait on 
her w'hen she was sick. She turned her 
head as the door opened, revealing a face 
that might have served as a model for the 
Cumoean Sibyl. 

“ Hi ! yi !” she exclaimed, with a bright- 
ening countenance, when she perceived 
'who the visitors were, “here comes my 
chillun for bring dey ole mammy some 
victuals : gentlefolks’ victuals been good, 
but tain’t no carnal food ole Chloe need 
now,” and she shook her head with dole- 
ful solemnity. 

“But we’ve brought you some medicine, 
too, Aunt Chloe, and that ■v\dll do you 
good,” said Ruth, in a cheering voice. 

On opening her basket, however, she 
found that a bottle containing some of 
Mrs. Bruen’ s cordial had been forgotten, 
and left behind at the church, 'where she 
had removed some of the contents to get 
at Bruen’ s pencil-case, that had been put 
in the basket. Audley offered to go back 
and fetch it *, and, as Bruen made no de- 
mur, Ruth readily agreed to await his 
return and prescribe for the old woman. 

‘‘ How did you catch this cold. Aunt 
Chloe?” she asked, when Audley had 
gone, well knowing the delight that old 
■w^omen take in giving the history of their 
ailments.’ 

“Well, it been nigh on to a month 
now, chile,” answered the old woman. 


“ I’se been feelin’ poorly ever since the 
day o’ that ’ere torment.” 

“Torment?” repeated Ruth, mystified. 

“ Yes ; dem torment whar Miss Claude 
been crown queen. I'se walk to de high 
road for see de gentlefolks pass by, an’ I 
git sick. Ole Chloe ain’t young now like 
her used to was, and can’t go a gaddin’ 
no more in dis warl. Ole Chloe neber 
see right done ; but de right ’ill come for 
all dat ; yes, yes, him ’ill come, but ole 
Chloe neber live for see ’em.” 

Ruth thought the old woman was wan- 
dering in her mind, and paid no attention 
to her vagaries. 

“ You won’t talk so despondingly, Aunt 
Chloe,” she said, “ when you have taken 
some of Mrs. Bruen’ s cordial and see 
how much good it will do you. She got 
the recipe from a famous doctor, and it 
never fails to cure, she says.” 

“ Mrs. Bruen one good ’oman to think 
o’ a poor ole nigger,” Chloe answered, 
gratefully. “I ain’t have no doctors 
stuff since I been ailin’. I’se been tryin’ 
for save a little somethin’ for buy some, 
but it always take everything I make for 
pay Misser Tadpole what I owes him.” 

“Mr. Tadpole!” cried Ruth. “How 
on earth came you to owe him anything. 
Aunt Chloe?” 

“ Why, you see, chile,” began the old 
woman, “ I does his washin’ for him, at 
ten cents a dozen, but he make de ’gree- 
ment wid me, afore I begin, dat for every 
garment what lackin’ de dozen he gwine 
take a cent outen my pay, and he don’t 
never have more’n two garments a week, 
so dat take all my pay, you see, and some- 
times he don’t hab nothin’ ’tall in de wash, 
and dat make me owe him. Alick Chance, 
which he been to school, he say tain’t 
right by his ’rithmetic ; but he can’t pint 
out whar the orrer lay, and Misser Tad- 
pole he keep all de count of it, and he say 
his count right, and I owe him something 
every month. I can’t see how it is, an’ it 
don’t seem right dat I pay him for doin’ 
of his work ; but Misser Tadpole he got 
lamin’, and de book lamin’ all go agin 
me.” 

“ If I were you,Aunt Chloe,” said Ruth, 
who saw that it would be useless to try to 
explain the false logic of this contempt- 
ible trickery to the old negro’s simple 
brain, “I would not do Mr. Tadpole’s 
washing for him any longer.” 

“ Dat what I want, chile, ef I could 
once git out o’ his debt,” said Aunt Chloe ; 
“ but you see I has to keep on washin’ for 
him till I pay, and it look like de more I 
works de more I owes. You see he never 


JENEAS MAKES A DECLARATIOK 


135 


have more’n two pieces in de wash a week, 
so dere don’t never come no pay to me: 
here his week’s wash I fetched from the 
school-house dis mornin’.” And before 
Ruth had time to object, the old woman 
drew from her pocket a dirty handkerchief 
and a pair of socks. Abashed at having 
been betrayed into this involuntary in- 
spection of Mr. Tadpole’s wardrobe, and 
not caring to pursue the investigation fur- 
ther, Ruth slipped out of the cabin, under 
pretext of going to watch for Malvern, 
and walked slowly down the road, vent- 
ing her disgust and indignation against 
.^neas by stamping underfoot as she 
went along the unoffending pine-cones 
that lay scattered in her path. She had 
not proceeded many steps when she unex- 
pectedly encountered the object of her 
supreme loathing and contempt wending 
his way towards the cabin she had just 
quitted. She was about to pass him with 
a scarcely perceptible inclination of the 
head, but ^neas did not allow her the 
option. 

“ Since Providence has thrown you in 
my way, Miss Ruthie,” he began, recov- 
ering from his momentary surprise at 
meeting her, “ I will take the liberty, if 
you entertain no objection, to join you in 
your promenardey and impart something 
that has long been on my mind.” 

Ruth did entertain very decided objec- 
tions, but not knowing any polite way 
of expressing them, continued her walk 
in silence, taking care, however, to turn 
her steps towards the cabin, so as to 
insure its being as short as possible. 

“ Ahem, — did you, a — receive the little, 
ahem, — the note I sent you day before 
yesterday?” resumed ^neas. 

“ I did,” replied Ruth, curtly. 

“ You, ahem, remember that I a — ob- 
served in it that I wished, ahem, to 
speak with you alone, because I had, 
a — hem, something very particular to say 
to you?” ^ 

“ I remember,” answered Ruth ; and 
I think, Mr. Tadpole,” looking him full 
in the face, that you had better not say 
it.” 

jRneas dropped his pious eyes, put his 
hand to his mouth, coughed a low, em- 
barrassed cough behind it, and began 
again, — 

“ Miss Ruthie, Providence has placed 
it in my power to render you a very 
essential and important service.” 

Ruth regarded him in silence, with an 
air of haughty contempt. 

^‘Circumstances, which it is needless 
now to explain,” continued ^neas, not 


observing the look, “ have made me ac- 
quainted with many particulars of your 
past history, and that of your family, 
which it would be greatly to your profit 
and advantage to know.” 

Ruth’s breath began to come and go 
quickly. She had long felt that she was 
separated from her family by some secret 
influence which she could not understand, 
— that she stood apart, a stranger among 
her own kindred, living in her home, but 
not of it. Not only did Mr. Harfleur’s 
peculiar treatment fix this impression on 
her mind, but there was an indescribable 
something in the manner of all her ac- 
quaintance that seemed to deepen this 
sense of isolation. There was no posi- 
tive unkindness, except from Mr. Har- 
fleur himself, no studied neglect ; on the 
contrary, people seemed disposed to treat 
her with peculiar gentleness, as though 
she were a cripple, or an invalid, or had 
some such not very flattering claim upon 
the good nature of society *, yet, she was 
tacitly passed over and set aside in all 
family arrangements, the very servants 
seeming to govern their actions with 
reference to Claude alone, as though she 
were the only daughter of the house. 
Sometimes Ruth tried to account for this 
by her long absence, during which every- 
body had fallen into the habit of taking 
no account of her ; but that unnatural 
banishment itself was one of the things 
that perplexed her most. Then there 
was that mysterious encounter in the 
church-yard, and the occurrences on the 
day of the tournament, that made her 
feel a kind of terror of herself, as the 
centre of a mystery she could not unravel. 

No wonder, then, that Mr. Tadpole’s 
words excited something more than curi- 
osity within her, and she fixed her eyes 
upon him with a look of deeper interest 
than she would have believed it possible 
for anything that he could say to inspire. 
The pious ^Eneas observing her agita- 
tion, and conscious of having obtained a 
hearing, which he was by no means cer- 
tain of under ordinary circumstances, 
judged the moment propitious, and re- 
solved to take advantage of it for bring- 
ing out the something particular he had 
in reserve ; so striking his most seductive 
attitude, and making a weak-eyed effort 
to look her straight in the face, he fal- 
tered out, — 

“ Miss Ruthie, your — ahem, ahem — 
your a — image has long been impressed 
in letters — ahem — in colors — a — ahem — 
characters of flame upon my heart” He 
had his speech all fixed beforehand, but 


136 


A FAMILY SECRET, 


in the embarrassment of the moment it 
escaped him, and he bungled fearfully. 

Angry and disappointed, Ruth drew 
back haughtily, and regarded him with a 
look of supreme contempt. 

‘‘Mr. Tadpole,” she said, indignantly, 
“ if this is all you have to say, I may as 
well inform you that the knowledge of it 
is neither profitable nor pleasant to me.” 

“ This is not all. Miss Ruthie; it is far 
from all,” he answered, in a pleading 
tone. “I assure you, upon my word as 
a minister of the gospel, that I can, by 
revealing what I know, raise you to the 
highest pinnacle of worldly grandeur 
and prosperity, and if you will conde- 
scend to bestow upon me your heart and 
hand ” 

“ The only thing I shall ever bestow 
upon you,” cried Ruth, angrily snatch- 
ing away the hand he had made an effort 
to seize, “ is my utmost contempt and 
detestation.” 

“ It does not become a minister of the 
gospel,” sighed the pious j®neas, “ to re- 
sent bitter words, especially from a lady, 
and if you will reconsider yours. Miss 
Ruth, and think of the great service it is 
in my power to render you ” 

“ The only service you can render me, 
Mr. Tadpole,” cried Ruth, haughtily, “is 
never to come into my presence again. 
The greatest of earthly blessings, if re- 
ceived at your hands, w'ould be to me but 
a curse and a humiliation.” 

“ A curse and a humiliation let it be, 
then!” exclaimed i®neas, goaded for once 
into an honest outburst of indignation, 
that made him appear, for the moment, 
almost respectable. “ You have scorned 
me like a worm of the dust, but the time 
is coming when I will turn the knowledge 
that might have made you the first lady 
in the land into a humiliation and a 
curse, and you shall yourself be scorned 
by the one whose scorn it will be hardest 
for you to bear.” 

lie turned away, with a look of snaky 
malice gleaming in the little, pale-blue 
eyes, and left Ruth standing alone out- 
side Aunt Chloe’s cabin-door, bewildered 
and alarmed at the words she had just 
heard. She was so stunned by Mr. Tad- 
pole’s unexpected outburst that even the 
clatter of Audley’s horse’s hoofs, as he 
came galloping down the lane, failed to 
rouse her, and she still stood, staring 
with a look of haughty indignation at 
Eneas’s retreating figure, when Audley, 
springing lightly to the ground, presented 
himse'lf before her. 

“ Somebody looks as if there had been 


a quarrel on hand,” he said, with a 
laugh, as he glanced from her glowing 
features towards the clump of pines, be- 
hind which Aeneas that moment disap- 
peared. 

“ Yes,” cried Ruth, with an angry 
wave of her hand towards the innocent 
pines, “ that impertinent wretch has 

dared ” Then, ashamed of having 

suffered her passion to lead her so near 
the betrayal of a confidence that all honor- 
able women hold sacred, even for the 
meanest of their wooers, she suddenly 
paused and dropped her eyes. Audley 
comprehended the gesture, and felt as if 
the face before him would have justified 
almost any daring, so wondrously beauti- 
ful did it appear at that moment, the 
large, dark eyes flashing with excitement, 
and the cheeks glowing with brilliant 
color. 

“Don’t be too hard on the poor fel- 
low,” he said, with a si^ificant smile; 
“there are other impertinent wretches 
who would like to dare the same thing, 
if they thought it would be of any use ; 
— but here is your vial ; go leave your 
prescription with our patient, and let’s 
be off*. It must be nearly dinner-time, 
and I am most unromantically hungry.” 


CHAPTER XXX. 

AUDLEY COMES VERY NEAR MAKING A 
FOOL OF HIMSELF. 

Julia Malvern was surprised when 
she saw her brother return to Sandowne 
with Ruth Harfleur. He had left her 
under the impression that he was going 
to dine at the White House, and she 
wondered what could have induced him 
to change his mind. The dim possibility 
of his having met with a refusal presented 
itself, for a moment, to her imagination, 
but only to be laughed away. No, no ; it 
was impossible that any woman should 
refuse him, — the idea was simply prepos- 
terous. Claude was not at home, or 
Audley was fooling and dawdling in his 
usual fashion, — very provoking it must be 
confessed ; but then Audley was sure to 
win whenever he chose to advance his 
suit, so what was the use of fretting? 

Mrs. Malvern did not take so solacing 
a view of the case. 

“My dear,” she said, turning with a 


AUDLEY COMES NEAR MAKING A FOOL OF HIMSELF. 137 


frown from the window where she stood, 
as Audley sprang from his horse, and 
commenced assisting Ruth to alight, 
“you remember the anxiety I was ex- 
pressing about Audley the other day ; 
and there is that designing girl gone and 
put herself in his way again.” 

Julia had her own reasons for not 
liking Ruth Ilartleur, but she was of too 
noble a nature to be willfully unjust to 
another, — even though a woman, and a 
beauty, and a rival. 

“ I do not think Miss Harfleur is a 
designing person, mamma,” she said, 
quietly. 

“Not more than others in her situa- 
tion, my dear,” replied Mrs. Malvern ; 
“ but these portionless beauties are always 
designing creatures.” 

“ Only where there is a golden prize 
in the market like General Bagpipe,” 
said Julia, coloring deeply ; “but Dud- 
ley’s fortunes would hardly tempt the 
most needy to waste her diplomacy on 
him now.” 

“You are very unreasonable, Julia,” 
returned her mother, stiffly, “ to make a 
personal application of my remark. This 
girl is not only without fortune, but has 
not even a name 5 your case is entirely 
different: you have birth, rank, distinc- 
tion, and all the advantages of an exalted 
station in life.” 

“And the disadvantages, too,” mur- 
mured J ulia, with a sigh. 

“And have a right to expect,” con- 
tinued her mother, “ that he upon whom 
you bestow all these will have something 
to offer in return ; and General Bagpipe, 
with all his money, may well congratulate 
himself upon his good fortune in marry- 
ing a Malvern, — a descendant of the Aud- 
leys, too ; — and as for your brother, there 
is not an heiress in the land but might 
thank her stars if she could get him.” 

“ That may be so,” replied Julia, “ but 
no portionless beauty could indulge her- 
self in the expensive luxury of a husband 
like Audley *, and therefore, if Miss Ilar- 
fleur is really the designing creature you 
take her for, she is not likely to waste her 
powers on him. Major Dalton is much 
more tempting game to one in her situa- 
tion ; and, indeed, I have heard that his 
attentions to her are very marked.” 

Julia turned her head as she spoke, so 
that her mother could not see her face ; 
if Mrs. Malvern had noted her daughter’s 
pallid, glassy look at that moment her 
next words would have died away on her 
tongue. 

“I hope to heaven it is so!” she said. 


fervently ; “ but really, I have never seen 
him pay her any attention.” 

“ That is merely because you do not 
see him at all j he never comes where we 
are.” 

“ But if he were so very attentive we 
could not help seeing him now and then, 
spending most of our time as we do at the 
White House. He certainly cannot be 
thrown with her half so much as your 
brother; indeed, Julia, I think Audley is 
entirely too attentive to her, and he cer- 
tainly does admire her music most ex- 
travagantly.” 

“Oh, that is only Audley’s way, 
mamma,” said Julia. “You know he 
always was extravagantly fond of music, 
and is forever paying women attentions 
that mean nothing. Indeed, I may as 
well tell you at once, if it will set your 
mind at rest, he assured me only yester- 
day that he had fully made up his mind 
to marry Claude.’^ 

Mrs. Malvern’s face grew radiant. 

“ He could not possibly have made a 
more suitable choice,” she said. “Ev^en 
setting aside pecuniary considerations, 
which you know, Julia, though people in 
our situation cannot afford to disregard 
them entirely, I have always acknowl- 
edged to be subordinate to the higher 
claims of birth and family, she is in every 
way a highly suitable connection for the 
Malverns. The Harfleurs, I am told, are 
a line old creole family, descended from 
some of the best blood in France, while 
on the mother’s side she is connected 
with the very first families in Virginia ; 
indeed, her great-great-grand filth er, Cal- 
vert Bruen, was descended from the 
same stock that gave rise to the Audleys, 
and was connected by marriage with my 
own grandfiither’s sister-in-law. Really, 
nothing more fortunate could have hap- 
pened. I must write to Maria about it 
this very day.” 

Audley and Ruth entered the room 
just at that moment, and Mrs. Malvern 
was so beaming with satisfaction at the 
information just imparted by Julia, that 
she received the designing creature with 
effusive politeness, and did not seem to 
think it necessary to stand guard over 
Audley, as usual, to counteract the nefa- 
rious designs of a portionless beauty. 

After dinner, while the rest of the 
family were gathered round the sitting- 
room fire, Ruth stepped into the parlor 
to look for some music she had left there 
on a previous visit, which she desired to 
carry back home with her. She had 
searched through a great heap of loose 


138 


A FAMILY SECRET. 


sheets, Tvhen her eye happened to rest on 
the frontispiece of an old score of “ Som- 
nainbula,’^ representing a certain famous 
prinia-donna as she appeared in the cele- 
brated sleep-walking scene at the old mill. 
The rude wood-cut reminded her of the 
exquisite pleasure with which she had 
heard that, her first opera, in the Cres- 
cent City, years ago, and she sat brooding 
over it, her mind filled with a thousand 
foolish, pleasing fancies, till her reverie 
was broken by a shadow falling across 
the page, and, raising her eyes, she beheld 
Malvern standing in the open window. 

“ What are you musing over so in- 
tently?” he said, with a smile, reaching 
out his hand to take the music. 

‘‘Nothing, — only thinking of the first 
time I ever went to the opera, and wish- 
ing that that was I,” said Ruth, pointing 
to the picture, as she resigned the music 
to his hand. 

“ And I, on the contrary, am very glad 
it is not you,” said Audley, as he gravely 
contemplated the beautiful features of 
the too celebrated songstress. “ Your in- 
nocence and purity are worth a great 
deal more than la Divans fame.” 

“But one need not adopt her character 
in acquiring her fame,” replied Ruth, 
sharply. “A musician is not necessarily 

a — a ” She felt that her impetuosity 

had got her into a difficulty, and stopped 
short. 

“ No, not necessarily,” said Audley, 
quietly assuming what she had stumbled 
at expressing ; ‘‘ but I do not think any 
woman can accustom herself to the ordeal 
of being set up as a target for public 
criticism without losing much oi that 
shrinking sensitive modesty which char- 
acterizes the best part of the sex. A 
woman who does not mind being stared 
at has lost all her charms for me.” 

“But you forget,” said Ruth, “that an 
actress never appears before an audience 
in her own person. Mrs. Siddons was 
never Sarah Siddons on the stage; and 
the more admirable she was, the less of 
self she felt in herself. A modest woman 
can face the stare of thousands on the 
stage, though she might shrink from the 
casual glance of a single passer in the 
streets. It is as absurd and unreasonable 
to talk about an actress or a musician 
getting up on the stage to be stared at, as 
to say of a couple waltzing that they are 
standing up on the floor to embrace each 
other.” 

“ Pardon me, Miss Ilarfleur,” replied 
Audley, “ if I seem too severe in my 
strictures on a profession which is so 


fortunate as to have you for its advocate ; 
but even at the risk of being condemned 
as absurd and unreasonable, I must still 
cling to my opinion that the stage is no 
place for such as you. I have seen too 
much of green-rooms, and, though the 
admission does me little credit, am too 
familiar wdth what goes on behind the 
scenes, not to feel assured that whatever 
you may believe now, in the innocence 
and purity of your heart, a few weeks’ 
actual experience of the associations to 
which a professional actress is condemned 
would cause you to reverse your judg- 
ment, and shrink from the boards as 
heartily as you now long for them,” 

“And what,” she exclaimed, rising and 
approaching the window at 'which he 
stood, “has reduced the morality of the 
profession to this low ebb but the unjust 
and narrow prejudice that banishes char- 
acter and respectability from the stage, 
and abandons it to the profligate and un- 
principled ? Or how can you expect it to 
be considered reputable when respectable 
young men and women are brought up in 
the belief that dramatic talents are but 
snares and devices of Satan, rather than 
the divine inspirations that they are? I 
am tired of all this sickening cant. Why 
do you extol Shakspeare, and Goethe, and 
Moli^re, and Racine to the skies, yet con- 
demn the art that gives living embodi- 
ment to their divine creations? How can 
you love Wagner, Bellini, Donizetti, and 
yet condemn the lyric stage?” 

She stood patting her foot nervously on 
the floor as she ceased speaking, and 
Audley thought, as he -watched her, her 
cheeks glowing and her bosom heaving 
with excitement, that he had never in all 
his life beheld anything so lovely. 

“You stand to your colors bravely,” he 
said, with an admiring smile ; “ and should 
I ever be so unfortunate as to fall under 
a ban, I hope I may find as persevering 
and zealous an advocate. But why should 
we stand here disputing all day about a 
subject on which we are never likely to 
agree, when there is one argument that 
you know never fails to silence me?” 

He tossed away the extinguished cigar 
he had been unconsciously holding in his 
hand while they were talking, and, enter- 
ing the room, went and opened the piano. 
Among the loose music that lay scattered 
there his eye rested upon the air from 
“ Mari tana,” the first song he had ever 
heard her sing. 

“ Ah, here is an old friend,” he said, 
placing the sheets on the music-board. 
“You have not sung this for me since we 


RUTWS PLOT, AND WHAT CAME OF IT 


139 


first met, long, long ago, and it’s a 
favorite of mine, too ; I hope you have 
not forgotten?” 

Ruth had not forgotten, and somehow 
the memory of the foolish words he had 
spoken then, when she was but a child, 
came rushing to her mind, and brought 
the color to her cheeks so violently that, 
instead of answering him, she turned 
away and walked to the window to hide 
her embarrassment. She wondered if he 
remembered, too, and if the foolish prom- 
ise made so long ago still lingered in his 
mind as it did in hers. There was some- 
thing in his manner that made her sus- 
pect it did, as, drawing near to where she 
stood, he whispered, in a pleading tone, — 

“ Won’t you sing me this one song, 
Miss Harfleur, for the sake of the ‘ long 
ago ’ ?” 

No; not to-day,” she answered, with- 
out looking at him. don’t feel like 
singing this afternoon.” 

“ But just this one song. I ask it as a 
special hxvor.” 

“ No, — I can’t.” 

It was the first time she had ever ap- 
peared disobliging about her music. 

“ You have refused every request I 
have made of you to-day,” said Audley, 
drawing away from her, and speaking in 
a reproachful tone ; that is, every one 
you found I had greatly set my heart 
on.” 

Ruth toyed nervously with the music 
she held in her hand, and answered 
nothing. It happened that they were 
the same sheets between which she had 
thrust Bruen’s sketch, and, as the leaves 
fluttered between her Angers, the little 
bit of card-board containing her portrait 
flew out and fell on the floor at Audley’ s 
feet. 

“ Chance is more generous to me than 
you,” he said, stooping to pick up the 
picture. “ I think you will have to let 
me keep this now, just to show that you 
are not inexorably bent upon refusing 
every prayer of mine. What ! still deny 
me? Then, by heaven, Til never ask 
any favor of you again as long as I 
live !” 

At these words, spoken with stran^re 
earnestness, Ruth drew back the hand 
she had extended to take the picture 
from him, and raised her eyes to Aud- 
ley’ s face. It was but an instant that 
their eyes met, yet in that glance Audley 
read all that he wished to know, and far 
more than Ruth w^ould have cared to re- 
veal. He bent over her and seized her 
hand ; his arm was round her waist ; his 


lips were close to hers, — when there was 
a light footstep heard in the hall, and 
Ruth, breaking away from him, rushed 
headlong out of the room. The next mo- 
ment Audley’ s mother stood before him. 

“ Dear me, Audley,” she began. what 
can be the matter ? I met Miss Harfleur 
in the hall just now in such agitation 
that she couldn’t even speak to me, and 
here you are with your face as red as a 
beet I I hope, my son, you have not 
been so foolish as ” 

‘‘Oh, I’m too old to do foolish things 
now, mother,” he answered, interrupting 
her, and thrusting the picture hastily 
into his pocket. “ You want me to mail 
that?” taking a letter from her hand. 
“ All right. I’m going to South Am- 
bury this evening, to see Major Mael- 
strom on business, and, by the way, it’s 
high time I was getting off*. I may not 
be back for a day or two, so good-night ; 
and here’s for Julia, too,” he added, im- 
printing a second kiss on her lips, and, 
without giving her time for another word, 
he hurried from the room. 

“The deuce take it!” he muttered to 
himself as he mounted his horse. “ If 
the old lady hadn’t come in just in the 
nick of time, that girl’s sweet face would 
have played the very devil with me. By 
Jove, I must fix things up with Claude at 
once, — yes, I certainly must, and not run 
the risk of making a fool of myself over 
this girLany longer.” 


CHAPTER XXXI. 
ruth’s plot, and what came of it. 

Audley Malvern did not return from 
that visit to South Ambury for several 
weeks. Couriers had arrived from the 
disaffected counties with news of fresh 
disasters to the Government forces. A 
new leader had suddenly risen among 
the outlaws ; a man of strange daring 
and no common military skill, who had 
organized from the loose vagabonds hiding 
in the swamps an effective force of several 
hundred men, with which he bid defiance 
to the feeble detachments sent by Govern- 
ment to put down deserters. The neces- 
sity for more stringent measures having 
now become apparent. Major Maelstrom 
was ordered to proceed in person to the 
scene of action with such forces as he 


140 


A FAMILY SECRET. 


could muster by drawing raw recruits 
from the Camp of Instruction and con- 
valescent patients from the hospitals. 
Audley was appointed to drill and organ- 
ize this forlorn hope ; and having now 
entirely recovered from his accident de- 
termined to accompany the majors expe- 
dition, Colonel Canning, the officer to 
whom he was originally accredited, hav- 
ing been captured and hanged by the 
outlaws and his bungling, undisciplined 
troop utterly annihilated, — such of them 
at least as had not gone over to the enemy. 

During the hurried preparations for 
departure Audley had not visited the 
White House at all, though he still 
clung to his resolution concerning Claude. 
No suitable occasion had offered, how- 
ever, for paying his addresses, and, as he 
did not exert himself to make one, time 
slipped away until the very last day 
before his departure arrived, and still his 
fate was undecided. “ There is no use 
being in a hurry, he said to himself 
from day to day, and so his time for 
action came to be very short indeed. 

But, if short, it promised also to be 
propitious. That day happened to be 
Claude’s birthday, and there was to be 
a great ball at the White House in honor 
of it. Young ladies of nineteen don’t 
mind birthdays. All the 4lite of the 
neighborhood, both of the native and 
refugee society, were invited. The Nor- 
goods mustered all their forces for the 
occasion, and even pretty Mary Dalton, 
at her mother’s instigation, was induced 
to lay aside her widow’s cap and take the 
field openly a second time. Ruth had 
seen George, too, and persuaded him to 
be present. She was too genuine a wo- 
man not to take a deep interest in the 
love-affairs of other people, and she hoped 
that by bringing George and Julia to- 
gether again she might be paving the 
way to a reconciliation, little knowing 
with what wild, passionate natures she 
had to deal. She loved George as a 
brother, and was sorely distressed at the 
dissolute courses to which he had aban- 
doned himself. She would have given 
worlds to reclaim him, but she felt that 
the glory of such a work could belong 
only to one whom George loved as he had 
never loved her. She felt that his way- 
ward nature could be led only by the 
force of some over-mastering passion, 
such as Julia Malvern alone was capable 
of inspiring. She knew the depth of his 
feeling for her, and the more she studied 
Julia’s character the more she felt that 
Julia alone might reclaim him, if, alas. 


he were not already beyond the redeeming 
power of any human influence. At any 
rate she did not think him beyond the 
hope of trying, and she could not see why 
the same passion that had wrought his 
ruin might not be used for his salvation, 
if the only hand that had power to tune 
again the jarring cords of his heart would 
mend its broken strings and tune its harsh 
discords to melody once more. As for 
George, she knew that what he took for 
the bitterness of hatred in his heart was 
but the sharper bitterness of love; nor 
could she believe it possible that a woman 
who had once loved George could ever 
become indifferent to him, especially one 
like Julia, so capable of appreciating his 
noble nature, one to whose lofty soul the 
common herd of men must seem so tame 
and flat in comparison. 

Love, then, taken for granted on both 
sides, Ruth thought she had only to bring 
the two in contact when, like electric 
wires, they would rush together by a 
common impulse, never dreaming that 
the overcharged currents might meet with 
a crash that would shiver to atoms the 
vessels that held them. So Ruth directed 
all her endeavors towards bringing George 
and Julia together without letting them 
suspect her design ; and, having used her 
influence over her friend to the utmost, 
she succeeded in wringing from him a 
promise which he would have made to no 
other living creature, — namely, that he 
would be present at a ball where he knew 
Julia Malvern was to be a guest. 

Of the many whose hopes and fears 
were centred on wffiat that evening might 
bring forth, there was no one that looked 
forward to it with such trepidation as 
Audley Malvern. It was his last chance 
of seeing Claude, and he had fully made 
up his mind to address her in form, and 
settle his fate forever. He had no doubt 
about finding a convenient occasion, for 
she never failed to give him preference 
over all rivals, and he could always 
obtain a hearing, while others waited in 
vain for a smile or a glance. Still less 
did he doubt what the result of the inter- 
view would be ; yet he felt nervous and 
uncomfortable, and would fain have put 
it off a little longer. 

It must be because I have been a 
bachelor so long,” he said, reasoning with 
himself as he sat pulling on his boots. 
“ When a fellow has lived free and easy 
till he’s thirty-three, it’s no light matter 
to subject himself to the dominion of a 
woman ; but it’s what we all must come 
to in the end, so I suppose I might just as 


RUTWS PLOT, AND WHAT CAME OF IT 


]41 


well make up my mind to it at once. 
Confound that other sister ! — I wish I 
had never seen her.” Then he worked 
himself into a passion, and flung a boot- 
jack at Archie’s head, because there was 
a button missing somewhere, and when 
Archie absconded, having no more inno- 
cent heads to vent his spleen upon, he 
went fidgeting absently about the room, 
and returned to his soliloquy : 

“ The reason I didn’t mind making 
love to the other sister must have been 
because I knew nothing could come of 
it. It’s natural that a fellow should feel 
solemn when he’s going to commit him- 
self for life. If I were going to marry 
Ruth, — but I knew from the first that 
she was out of the question, yes, alto- 
gether out of the question.” An uncon- 
scious sigh escaped with the words, and 
as he pronounced them a sudden pang 
shot through his heart, that made him 
anxious to fly from his own thoughts. 
He finished his toilette hurriedly, and set 
ofi* for the White House, to fortify him- 
self before taking the decisive step by a 
talk with Julia. „ 

She was already dressed when he ar- 
rived, and descended immediately to the 
drawing-room. The guests had not yet 
begun to assemble, and as the ladies of 
the family were still busy pinning on 
their last loops and bows, the brother 
and sister had the few minutes before 
the first ring at the door-bell to them- 
selves. 

Audley was struck with surprise, as his 
sister entered, at the extreme plainness of 
her dress. She wore a white silk, of very 
elegant material but somewhat the worse 
for wear, unadorned by a single jewel or 
a scrap of lace. It was the first time 
Audley had seen her dressed for a ball 
since the change in - their fortune had de- 
prived her of the means of gratifying 
that taste for pomp and splendor which 
she was so fond of indulging, and he 
could not reconcile himself to the con- 
trast. He had always been accustomed 
to see her ablaze with silks and jewels, 
that set off her queenly person, and gave 
her an appearance almost regal. She 
was a magnificent style of woman, and 
required magnificent surroundings to set 
her off. Simplicity did not become her, 
and she appeared to such disadvantage in 
the unwonted plainness of her attire 
that her brother could not help exclaim- 
ing,— 

“Why, good gracious, Julia, what is 
the matter with your dress ? You haven’t 
taken to the ‘sweet simplicity’ affectation, 


I hope. It don’t become you a bit, besides 
being entirely out of fashion.” 

“ It is not ‘ sweet simplicity,’ Audley, 
but ‘stern necessity’ that regulates my 
toilette to-night,’ ’ said J ulia. “You forget 
that I have no longer the means to dress 
as I would like.” 

“ But haven’t you some scraps of your 
old finery left that you could fix your- 
self up with a little ? They say that all 
the women have to brush r^p their old 
things now, and I think some lace or 
ribbon, tied up in bows, you know, and 
dabbed about over your clothes like other 
women do, would improve you.” 

“ My laces were all burnt or stolen at 
Heathmoor,” replied Julia. “There was 
not a shred left as big as my hand. That 
fire at Heathmoor,” she continued, with 
an effort at gayety, “is as great a bless- 
ing to me as was the fire at Ravenswood 
to Caleb Balderstone ; it furnishes an 
excuse for everything.” 

‘‘ But your diamonds ; you saved them. 
Where are they ?” 

“ Eaten up or worn out long ago. 
Converted into vulgar lard and bacon, 
or plain yarns, and made to serve the 
ignoble purposes of keeping off hunger and 
cold. AVe dined on the last gem the day 
before we left Carolina, and were prepar- 
ing to devour mamma’s watch next. You 
see we were very luxurious. Cleopatra’s 
pearl was nothing to the jewels and trin- 
kets we have been devouring for the last 
four years.” 

Audley turned away and bit his lip. 
Julia saw that he was disturbed, and 
tried to inspire him with her own levity. 

“ I didn’t mind eating up the diamonds, 
you know,” she continued, “ because I 
mean to have much handsomer ones 
when I am married. Your brother-in-law 
elect has a superb set that he has pre- 
sented to each of his three wives in turn, 
and as I come next in the order of suc- 
cession, and don’t intend to die in time 
to give him an opportunity of transfer- 
ring the gift, I can shine in the hand- 
somest jewels in America when I’m a 
dashing young widow.” 

“Umph! if old Bags would have the 
grace to peg out soon,” said Audley, “ it 
might not be such a bad investment, 
after all.” 

“ No, indeed ; but I never was one of 
your lucky people,” said Julia, flippantly, 
“ and it would be like my stars if he 
should hang on for twenty years yet just 
to spite me. I always thought it must 
be a charming thing to be a rich young 
widow. One has all the freedom of a 


142 


A FAMILY SECRET. 


girl with the independence of a matron, 
and is not domineered over by the pro- 
prieties. Ah ! but what a pity it is that 
one has to be a wife first I I wish I had 
been born a widow.” 

Julia, Julia, you shocking creature !” 
cried her brother, laughing in spite of 
himself. “ What will you say next? To 
hear you talk one would think you had 
been born without a heart.” 

“ And yet I have as much as other 
women,” said Julia. “The only differ- 
ence is that I dare to look at myself as I 
am, and make no effort to whitewash my 
motives in marrying a disgusting old 
brute for his money. Other women 
marry for money or for convenience 
every day, and so varnish the thing 
over that they never think the worse of 
themselves for it. I, at least, am not a 
hypocrite, but confess myself the base, 
sordid, mercenary creature that I am.” 

“ Yes, you are a hypocrite, Julia, but 
you turn your mantle of hypocrisy inside 
out,” said her brother, patting her ten- 
derly on the cheek. “ You make your- 
self out a great deal worse than you 
are.” 

“ That would be hard to do now,” said 
Julia, sadly. “ I wasn’t born good like 
Euth Harfleur and that sort of people, 
you know, who grow the better for hav- 
ing trouble, but I have been growing 
worse and worse ever since our troubles 
began, until now I am a perfect monster, 
and heaven only knows where I shall 
end. Marrying for money never nvakes 
people better, but it leaves us so poor in 
our own estimation, so mean in spirit, so 
hollow, so empty, and, after all, so un- 
satisfied, that sometimes I almost doubt 
whether it pays. And yet I cannot creep 
through the world a poor Cinderella all 
my days.” 

She swept proudly across the room, 
paused before a tall mirror, and took a 
contemptuous survey of herself. Audley 
felt chilled and disheartened by her words. 
He had come to borrow encouragement 
from Julia for his own matrimonial pro- 
jects ; but, somehow, he rather shrank 
from alluding to the subject now, and 
concluded there was no use in saying any- 
thing more to her till the matter was 
settled. Ilis mind was fully made up 
anyhow, and why should Julia’s words 
make him waver? He was not going to 
marry for money. Claude was a woman 
that any man might be glad to get with- 
out a stiver ; and, besides, he was very 
decently in love with her, or, at all events, 
he did not love anybody else — no. 


Just then his heart gave a great bound 
in his breast, and sent the hot blood 
throbbing through every vein. He heard 
a light step on the stair, a rustling of airy 
drapery at the door, and the next instant 
Ruth glided into the room with her arms 
full of flowers. She started back in sur- 
prise on beholding Malvern, and a deep 
flush overspread her features, for it was 
the first time they had met since the day 
she fled from him so abruptly in the 
drawing-room at Sandowne. He, how- 
ever, after that first involuntary recogni- 
tion of a power he was resolved not to 
own, betrayed no sign of emotion, and 
advanced to meet her with that air of 
frank cordiality so natural to him. 

I hope. Miss Harfleur,” he said, ex- 
tending his palm, “ that your hands are 
not too full to spare one to greet a 
friend.” 

She rested her rosy fingers a moment 
in his own, without raising her eyes, 
dropped half her flowers in doing it, and, 
as she stooped to pick them up^ lost a 
little spray of pansies from her hair. 
Audley replaced the other flowers in her 
hands, but stuck the pansies in his button- 
hole, unforbidden, it may have been un- 
perceived, while Ruth hurried on to Julia 
with her lapful of roses. 

You refused to wear any of Claude’s 
jewels. Miss Malvern,” she said, tumbling 
her flowers on a chair, “so I have brought 
you some of mine, and you need not ac- 
cuse yourself of sailing under false colors, 
as you express it, with them ; for, though 
more brilliant than Claude’s diamonds, 
they are modest enough for any of us : 
indeed, flowers are the only cheap finery 
I know that isn’t vulgar.” 

With that she placed on Julia’s head a 
diadem of white camellias, that made the 
most becoming coiffure she had ever worn ; 
then, by pinning a knot of rose-buds here, 
and a cluster of green leaves there, 
catching back the too cumbrous train 
with tasty bouquets, holding a loop on this 
side and a plait on that side with sprays 
of flowers, she metamorphosed Julia's 
incomplete toilette into a stylish and ele- 
gant costume. Audley was delighted ; 
Julia, unused to such expedients, could 
hardly believe her eyes, and both of them 
remarked then, for the first time, that 
Ruth, though her dress was very striking 
and artistic, had not a single jewel about 
her : it was simple white tulle^ trimmed 
with pansies. 

“ I declare you are as good as a fairy 
godmother, Ruth,” said Julia, as she sur- 
veyed herself with open satisfaction. 


RUTWS PLOT, AND WHAT CAME OF IT. 


143 


“You have really made me look quite 
stylish, — in this old tag^ed-out thing, too, 
that I never imagined could be made to 
look respectable again.’’ 

It was the first time she had ever drop- 
ped the formality of “ Miss” in her inter- 
course with Ruth ; though with her sister 
it had been “ dear Claude” and “ dear 
Julia” from the first. Ruth noticed the 
friendly advance, and it gratified her, 
coming from Colonel Malvern’s sister ; 
but she was hardly prepared for Julia’s 
next movement, which was to catch Ruth’s 
face in both her hands and kiss it. 

“ I wish I was half as good and unsel- 
fish as you are,” she said, her haughty 
features relaxing into an expression of 
wonderful sweetness. “ I have been rude 
and spiteful to you ever since we first 
met, and here you are doing your best to 
make me look pretty, — and you a beauty 
yourself, too.” 

Never had Julia appeared more attrac- 
tive than she did at that moment. “ If 
George could only see her now !” thought 
Ruth, and before the wish had well shaped 
itself in her brain George Dalton entered 
the room. Julia started like one awaking 
from a dream, and caught at the chair in 
front of her for support; but she was too 
practiced a woman of the world to be 
long mastered by her own emotions, and, 
before George could perceive her agitation, 
had recovered herself, and seemed wholly 
occupied in arranging her bouquet, — so 
occupied that she appeared not even to be 
aware of his presence. He spoke first 
to Ruth, who had gone forward to meet 
him. 

“ You see I have kept my promise,” 
he whispered, taking her hand and draw- 
ing it through his arm. 

“ And that other promise, George ; you 
have not forgotten ” 

“To come here sober? No; I am as 
sane as the sons of Rechab — at least I 
was, until I saw — but no matter.” 

“ So you two are on such terms as 
those, are you?” thought Julia, as she 
watched them talking together so con- 
fidentially, and the kiss she had just be- 
stowed upon Ruth burned on her lips 
like a blow. “No wonder you were so 
unselfish towards me just now ; it shows 
how little you fear me : how little. I am 
to him, you insolent conqueror!” 

She raised her eyes, unconscious that 
the roses she had been nervously te^iring 
to pieces had pricked her with their 
thorns till the blood reddened her finger- 
tips. George met her eyes with a look as 
cold and disdainful as her own. 


“ Permit me to express my pleasure at 
meeting you again, Miss Malvern,” he 
said, with a distant bow. 

“ Your pleasure is equaled only by my 
own. Major Dalton,” she replied, with a 
very slight inclination of the head, and 
turned away as if much more concerned 
in noting the next arrival than in con- 
tinuing the interview with her old lover. 
George looked after her a moment, and 
Ruth thought she felt his arm tremble a 
little under her hand ; but he said no- 
thing, nor did he refer to Julia again by 
word or look during the entire evening. 

Arrivals now followed one another in 
quick succession, and by ten o’clock Mr. 
Ilarfleur’s rooms were crowded, with a 
brilliant assemblage. Everything seemed 
propitious to the occasion: the weather 
was superb, and a glorious moonlight, 
such moonlight as is only seen in those 
soft Southern regions, silvered every leaf 
and twig, and almost paled the great 
bonfires that were blazing at intervals 
down the long avenue. Lights glanced 
in every window of the mansion, and 
colored lanterns suspended from the trees 
made the garden like a scene in fairy- 
land. The whole house was decorated 
with flowers, and in the centre of the hall 
there stood a splendid floral pyramid, six 
feet high, crowned with a blazing finial 
of crimson euphorbias. A fine military 
band, stationed in the piazza, made the 
gravest feet tingle and pat time uncon- 
sciously to its music. In short, there 
never had been such a carnival in all that 
region since the forest rang with the din 
of the Indian war-dance, and the young 
people, for full two seasons after, dated 
from Claude Harfleur’s ball as the great 
era in their social calendar. 

Amid all that festive throng there was 
none so recklessly gay as Julia Malvern. 
She was the star of the evening, the daz- 
zling noonday sun rather, before whose 
shining splendor the brightest stars grew 
pale. Even Claude was for once com- 
pletely eclipsed, and people could talk of 
nothing but that superb Miss Malvern. 
Julia seemed inspired that night with a 
relentless determination to fascinate, and 
gathering all her wonderful powers she 
fairly walked over hearts. Stifling the 
vein of satire that too often gave a sting 
to her words, her sallies still sparkled 
with wit and gay repartee, brilliant, 
though harmless, like bubbles that burst 
in the air. You would never have taken 
her for the same Julia whose bitter utter- 
ances had so damped her brother’s spirit 
an hour ago. So brilliant, so royal, so 


144 


A FAMILY SECRET. 


superb that men looked up to her as to a 
queen, yet so affable, so winning, so 
gracious, that the most timid felt em- 
boldened by her smile. Every one felt 
himself distinguished by her notice, yet 
there was none too insignificant 'for her 
to be gracious to. Even the ladies, those 
charming Philistines that show such a 
morbid horror of each other’s society at 
balls, came in for a share of her complai- 
sance, and praised her behind her back ; 
while the mothers of marriageable daugh- 
ters forgot to make reflections about her 
age until next day. The men were all 
frantic about her ; she was surrounded 
by a phalanx of admirers too deep for her 
to see over, and had invitations to dance 
faster than she could answer them. Yet, 
with her wonderful tact, she contrived to 
let no one feel that he was slighted ; her 
very refusals were softened with an air 
of gracious regret that made them pass 
for delicate compliments. The only per- 
son in all that assembly whom she seemed 
not to think it worth her while to notice 
was George Dalton. She did not bestow 
so much as a glance upon him after their 
first formal meeting. 

If social triumphs can make a woman 
happy, then ought Julia’s cup to have 
been full to overflowing. But, though 
her success, to all outward seeming, was 
so complete, never had Julia felt less 
satisfaction with herself and with the 
world than at that moment. Little did 
the thoughtless revelers around her 
dream that the light of those flashing 
eyes was but the reflection of a soul 
scorched with self-made torments, or 
that the glow on her cheeks was painted 
with blood from a heart torn by passions 
more cruel than the vultures of Prome- 
theus. Who, amid all that delighted, ad- 
miring, envying throng, could guess that 
a single glance of the only eyes that never 
looked towards her would have been more 
to Julia Malvern than the adulation of 
all the world beside? Talk about stoi- 
cism, there is no stoic like a fashionable 
woman who can smile and wheedle and 
fascinate, even while the iron is passing 
through her soul. Julia was an admir- 
able stoic*, but even she grew weary of 
her mask at last, and felt that she must 
lay it aside for a little while or it would 
stifle her. 

Towards the close of the evening, dur- 
ing that lull in the dance that always 
takes place just after supper, she con- 
trived to steal off alone, and found her 
way to a little dilapidated summer-house, 
where there was a rustic-bench hidden 


under a canopy of purple cobaea and jes- 
samine-vines. She entered, all her dis- 
guises thrown aside now, looking a very 
ghost of the magnificent Julia who had 
been dazzling the ball-room a moment 
before, and was about to fling herself 
down dejectedly on the bench, when a 
dark figure rose from the other end, and 
a voice asked, — 

“ Is that you, Ruth?” 

She started, and stood haughty and 
erect as an offended queen. It was 
George Dalton’s voice, and he had called 
Ruth by her name. Evidently he had 
come here to meet her; there had been 
an appointment, a private understand- 
ing ; these two were to steal off and meet 
each other alone. It Avas enough : she 
saAv it all clearly now, and her own doom 
was doubly sealed. 

“I beg your pardon,” she said, coldly, 
turning towards the door. “ I had no 
idea that I was going to intrude upon a 
lovers’ rendezvous, or I would not have 
come here.” 

‘‘You need not disturb yourself. Miss 
Malvern,” he replied ; “ the only rendez- 
vous I have is with thoughts too hateful 
to be rendered worse even by your pres- 
ence, since they arO all about you.” 

“ Then I beg that you will not allow 
me to intrude even upon your thoughts,” 
returned Julia. “ I assure you I have no 
wish to do so,” she added, with cutting 
emphasis. 

‘‘No more have I that you should,” 
George retorted; “but to me there is no 
choice. In depriving me of every noble 
aspiration, every lofty theme of reflec- 
tion, in blasting and cursing my whole 
life with your poisonous influence, you 
have dragged down my very thoughts, 
till they can find nothing better to feed 
upon than you.” 

Just then the moon came out from 
behind a passing cloud, arid, shining full 
in George’s face, Julia saw that it was 
flushed with wine. He had only prom- 
ised Ruth to come to the ball sober, and, 
forgetting all other considerations in the 
madness that Julia’s presence had aroused, 
he had plunged headlong into the still 
more cursed madness of wine. He was 
not beastly drunk, — George was never 
that,-7-but just excited enough to make 
him fierce in his anger and reckless in 
his speech. Julia, chafed at his reproaches, 
exclaimed, as she looked him in the face, — 

“If a drunken man were a responsible 
being, I would resent your words as they 
deserve.” 

“A drunken manl” echoed George, 


EUTH'S PLOT, AND WHAT CAME OF IT 


145 


slowly, bendins; forward and speaking 
through his clinched teeth. “You do 
well to taunt me with that! You made 
me drunk before ever I tasted wine ; 
drunk with the intoxicating poison of 
your false lips ; drunk to blindness with 
£C fool’s trust in a faithless woman. You 
have deceived my trust, overturned my 
fiiith, given me gall and wormwood in- 
stead of the happiness you promised. 
My life is what your hand has shaped it ; 
and now, when you see me the worthless 
brute that I am, you taunt me with being 
what your perfidy has made me ; that is 
worthy of you.” 

He turned to go away, but Julia inter- 
posed, flinging herself in the door before 
him. 

“And your reproaches are worthy of 
you,” she cried, bitterly. “ You men 
are always ready to pack the burden of 
your iniquities on some woman’s shoul- 
ders. The first man did so to the first 
woman, even in Paradise, and men have 
been telling the same old story ever 
since : ‘ The woman gave to me and I 
did eat.’ If you are drunkards, felons, 
murderers, no matter what, it’s all the 
fault of some woman who couldn’t love 
you as rapturously as you deserved, and 
so spoilt the precious saints you would 
have been. Are saints made, think you, 
of such flimsy stuff that they can be 
spoilt by a woman’s frown? It’s base, 
it’s contemptible, it’s cowardly, to go 
whining about the wrongs you’ve received 
from a woman, and laying to her charge 
the very vices that are her justification 
in rejecting you. And what excuse have 
we women, when our hearts lie crushed 
and broken? or what charity do you ex- 
tend to us, if, driven to despair and mad- 
ness, we go one single step astray ? Who 
but jeers and laughs if a woman is jilted 
and deceived ? Who pities us if our 
hearts lie bruised and bleeding in the 
hand of some monster we are constrained 
to call husband? Who thinks of the 
temptations the worst of us resist, of the 
sacrifices the most selfish have to make? 
There is no career for us but to be dragged 
to honor or dishonor at some man’s heels. 
If our hearts are wounded, we cannot fall 
back upon our brains, and solace our- 
selves with the triumphs of ambition, 
for it is unwomanly to have brains. ’Oh, 
the slavery it is to be a woman and not 
a fool I You men have bound us down 
under the heel of a tyrannous conven- 
tionalism, and then you blame us for 
being the narrow, contemptible creatures 
your social s^^stem has made us. You 


give us no room for intellectual action, 
and then you cry shame on us that our 
ambition seeks only the sordid triumph 
of a gilded wedlock. I might have been 
ambitious of better things if the world 
had let me ; as it is, I am aiming at the 
only glory a woman is allowed to covet, 
and through the only channel by which 
society permits her to compass it, and I 
am doing only what thousands of women 
do, unblamed, every day. I told you, 
long ago, that wealth and splendor, by 
long habit, had become necessary to me; 
I thought you were as poor as myself. 
I knew that your indolent nature was 
not likely ever to lift the millstone of 
poverty from our necks, and I thought I 
was doing you good service in sparing 
you the additional burden of a discon- 
tented, unhappy wife; for I could not 
be happy, George, though I loved you, 
heaven knows I did, — though you would 
not believe, you would not listen ” 

“ Hush !” thundered George, un ap- 
peased by her tone, which had gradually 
softened till it became almost a prayer;- 
“ I despise your love, a vile, polluted 
thing, that you carry in your pocket, like 
a pack of cards, to gamble with. Look 
at me, Julia Malvern,” he continued, 
seizing her by the wrist, and bending 
over till she felt his hot breath on her 
cheek, “if you had never loved me I 
might, perhaps, learn one day to forgive 
you, for they say it is natural for women 
to deceive, and I might forgive you for 
being a woman. If you could look me 
in the face and say you do not love mej, 
even now, I might pardon you for being 
fickle and capricious, like the rest of your 
sex ; if I had not thought you so high? 
above other women, perhaps your base- 
ness would not now seem so low. I can- 
not pity you for a woman’s weakness,, 
because you have shown yourself strong 
in evil where the sternest of men would 
have failed. If you were weak I might 
despise you enough to pity you,-— I wish 
to heaven I did not hate you too much to 
despise you! Weak women sin for their 
love, but you, stronger than Samson, 
have sinned against yours. You have 
deliberately trampled your own heart, 
and the heart of the man that loved you, 
underfoot, and sacrificed your afiectlon 
to the ends of a base and sordid ambition. 
May that love prove as bitter to yon as 
it has been to me! may it blast and 
wither your whole life, as it has done 
mine ! — this is my blessing on your be- 
trothal.” 

“ I’ll not stand here longer to be in- 


146 


A FAMILY SECRET. 


suited by a drunken madman !’’ cried 
Julia, tearing herself from his grasp ; and, 
with an angry toss of the head, that 
scattered her flowery coronet on the 
ground at George’s feet, she hurried away 
towards the house. George stooped, 
picked up one of the flowers she had 
worn, pressed it to his lips an instant, 
then dashed it angrily to the ground, 
and strode away out of the summer- 
house. He appeared no more in the 
ball-room, and the next morning his 
mother found the following note on her 
work-table : 

“ When you open this, dear mother, I 
shall be on my way to Richmond, with 
an application to be sent into active ser- 
vice again. I did not stop to take leave 
of you, because I wished to spare myself 
the pain of parting. Forgive my selfish 
weakness, and don’ t distress yourself about 
me ; but if the next news you get of me 
is in the fatal list after a battle, comfort 
yourself by thinking it is just the thing 
I wanted, and don’t break your heart 
over a worthless dog like 

“ George Dalton.” 


CHAPTER XXXII. 

THE BLONDE CURL. 

If Audley Malvern had been less en- 
grossed with his own affairs he might, 
perhaps, have felt some embarrassment 
on his sister’s account, that she should 
have been brought so unexpectedly face 
to face with George Dalton *, but when a 
man feels that the destiny of his life is 
to be decided in the course of a few 
hours, it is not unnatural that he should 
be more absorbed in his own concerns 
just at that juncture than in anything 
else, and so, seeing both George and 
Julia apparently unmoved by the shock 
of the first meeting, he disturbed himself 
no further about them. 

“ They are both cured of their love by 
this time,” he said, to himself, as he 
moved away to another part of the room. 
“People always get over that sort of 
thing in time, so what matters it if a 
fellow does take a fancy to the wrong 
girl at first, provided he don’t give way 
to it?” 

With this sage reflection, drawn from 
his sister’s experience, he dismissed her 
from his thoughts for the rest of the 


evening, and bestowed his attention upon 
one in whom he felt just then a deeper 
personal interest. Claude was looking 
radiant as usual. Her magnificent dress 
of gold-colored silk, with guipure flounces 
and pearl ornaments, would have been 
too prononc^e for most women, but 
Claude’s beauty was of a character that 
consorted well with a showy style of 
dress, and her appearance was, in every 
sense, dazzling. 

Audley fastened upon her a look of 
quiet scrutiny as she entered the draw- 
ing-room, and continued to follow her 
with his eyes wherever she went, though 
he did not approach her, or ask her to 
dance till so late that she was engaged 
some half a score of sets ahead. He was 
not at all surprised at this, and appeared 
less disappointed than his words would 
seem to imply, as he composedly wrote 
his name on her card at the end of some 
dozen or more of others, and then saun- 
tered off* resignedly to await his turn. 
When at last it came, Claude was tired 
and did not feel like dancing, but pro- 
posed that they should sit down some- 
where and rest instead. Here ^as the 
very opportunity he wanted; yet, why 
did he feel so discomposed, now that for- 
tune seemed determined to play into his 
hand ? What^ made him hesitate, and 
think a better occasion might offer later, 
when he went to say ‘ good-night,’ 
for instance? But no, that would not 
do ; the evening was now far spent, some 
sensible mammas had already ordered 
their carriages ; the opportunity might 
not offer again, and must not be thrown 
away ; so instead of seating Claude, as 
his first impulse had been, between two 
frigid old dowagers, whose presence 
would effectually bar anything like an 
“ explanation,” he led her away to a 
little cabinet adjoining the parlor, which, 
being too small to dance in, had been 
overlooked and deserted by all but them- 
selves. 

“And you are really going away to- 
morrow,” said Claude, with a little 
tremor in her voice, as she sank back on 
the sofa, where he placed himself at her 
side. 

“ Yes,” he replied ; “ but why remind 
me of anything so painful? Let me for- 
get there is such a thing as parting while 
I enjoy the privilege of sitting by your 
side.” 

“It is a privilege you are very late 
in beginning to appreciate,” returned 
Claude, reproachfully. “ Your visits to 
the White House have become so rare as 


THE BLONDE CURL. 


147 


to warrant the suspicion that going away 
will hardly be so painful to you as you 
make out.” 

“ But I am sure you will not entertain 
a suspicion so unjust,” said Audley, 
“ when you reflect how little a military 
man is master of his OAvn time.” 

But you cannot have been so over- 
whelmed with business,” replied Claude, 
“nor is the AVhite House so far off, but 
you might have found time to make a 
flying visit here now and then if you had 
wished.” 

“ Perhaps I might,” said Audley, bend- 
ing over her and toying with her fan, “ if 
I had not wished so very much. Now 
that you drive me to the wall, Miss Har- 
fleur, I may as well confess at once that 
business has not had more to do with my 
absence than another reason, — shall I tell 
you what?” 

“ Open confession is good for the soul, 
as my sister Avould say,” replied Claude, 
evasively ; for she guessed so well what 
that other reason Avas, that with aAA^oman’s 
strange inconsistency she began to dread 
as much as she wished to hear it. Audley 
changed color most unaccountably at this 
allusion to Claude’s sister, and if she had 
observed a little more closely she would 
have seen the hand toying so carelessly 
with her fan tremble slightly as he replied : 

“Well, then, I had not the courage to 
come.” 

“ Courage ! What !” cried Claude, pre- 
tending not to guess his meaning, “ is the 
White House an enchanted castle, haunted 
by monsters and demons ready to prey 
upon defenseless knights, that it should 
require so much courage to venture here?” 

“ Enchanted, yes,” replied Malvern, 
bending so low that his lips almost 
touched her hair, “ and haunted, too, but 
by something far more fatal to defense,- 
less knights than monster or demon. 
Many a cavalier who fears not man nor 
God has been conquered l)y the resistless 
power of beauty.” 

“ And you, it seems, haA^e shared, the 
common fate,” said Claude, with persist- 
ent coquetry, still pretending to misin- 
terpret him; “and like a faithful knight 
you carry your lady’s colors on your 
breast.” She took her fan from his hand 
as she spoke and lightly tapped the cluster 
of pansies in his button-hole. She had 
been jealous of those flowers ever since she 
first saw them there, and she took a mali- 
cious pleasure in teasing him about them. 

“ I carry my lady’s colors nearer my 
heart than that — if she will deign to let 
me call her mine,^’ said Audley, stealing 


one arm around Claude’s waist, while 
with the other hand he drew from his 
vest-pocket the little note-book that he 
made a general receptacle for all sorts 
of documents, love-trophies. Government 
orders, tailors’ bills, cartes de visite, and 
a score of other things ; but instead of 
turning, as h'e had intended, to the pink 
rose-bud enshrined there on the night of 
the tournament ball, the leaves opened 
of their own accord at the place Avhere 
he had laid Bruen’s portrait of Buth. 
At that moment, of all others, he Avas 
least prepared to meet unmoved the 
warm, impassioned look of those speaking 
eyes. He felt his blood run hot and then 
cold through his veins, and an uncon- 
trollable agitation shook his frame as he 
sat gazing at the picture with a look of 
tenderness he could not conceal. He 
might have hastily turned over another 
leaf ; he might have stuffed the book back 
in his pocket, or shuffled the miniature 
under the transportation bill that lay be- 
tween the same leaves, before Claude had 
time to perceive who it was, but the 
poAver of reflection seemed suddenly to 
have deserted him, and his natural in- 
stincts, to do him justice, were all against 
deception. At that moment, the convic- 
tion rushed upon him Avith terrible re- 
ality that he did not love the woman at 
his side, and he was overAvhelmed with 
sudden shame at the treacherous part he 
had been acting. The nobler instincts 
of his nature, so long smothered under 
the teachings of a false and heartless 
world, asserted themselves at last, and he 
felt that he could not advance another step 
in the course he was pursuing. He did 
not stop to reflect that he had gone too 
far to recede easily ; as we have said be- 
fore, all power of reflection seemed to 
have forsaken him, and moved by an im- 
pulse he could not explain, he laid the 
picture boldly before Claude, and leaving 
her side, looked her unflinchingly in the 
face. The act Avas one of penance rather 
than pride on his part ; he was thinking 
only of exposing and humiliating him- 
self. He remembered Claude’s motto, 
“open confession is good for the soul,’^ 
and forgot the possibility of wounding 
her in this sudden act of self-condemna- 
tion. Self-convicted, he laid before her 
the lovely face that had brought him sp 
irresistibly to a sense of his own false- 
ness as any repentant criminal would 
expose the evidences of his guilt, and the 
look he fixed upon her was full of con- 
trition and self-reproach, not of insolent 
triumph. 


148 


A FAMILY SECRET. 


But Claude naturally misinterpreted 
both the look and the act. Burning with 
the just indignation of an injured and 
outraged woman, her first impulse was to 
spring from the sofa and heap upon him 
the reproaches he so richly deserved, but 
pride, that tyrant of a woman^s breast, 
compelled her to conceal her wrath, lest 
with it she should also betray her love. 
"With a steady hand she put aside the 
picture, without deigning to look at it, 
•and said, as she slowly rose from her 
seat, — 

“ There -was no need of all this. Col- 
onel Malvern, to inform me of the real 
state of your afiections ; and if you im- 
agine that I have ever been the dupe of 
your contemptible trifling, you are as 
greatly deceived as you take me to be. I 
found out what colors you carried nearest 
your heart long ago, and I now' return this 
to you, wdth the advice that the next time 
you undertake to make love to two sisters 
at once, you will guard your trophies a 
little more carefully.’^ 

With that she opened a locket attached 
to her necklace, took out the blonde ring- 
let that Audley had lost the night of the 
tournament ball, flung it down before 
him, and without another word left the 
room. 

Audley sat confounded. He had no 
difficulty in guessing how Claude became 
possessed of that little relic ; and his 
cheeks fairly burned with shame as he 
reflected on the contemptible part he had 
been playing, and the figure he must have 
cut in Claude’s eyes ; — and then Buth, — 
if she should suspect his treachery, that 
would indeed be intolerable : he snatched 
up the silky tress, and pressed it to his 
lips in an agony of shame and remorse. 

But in spite of his bitter self-condemna- 
tion, he felt, he could not tell w'hy, more 
light-hearted than he had done for weeks. 
It seemed as if a great load had somehow 
been lifted from his heart; that he had 
made a narrow escape and come out of a 
great danger, a little scathed it might be, 
but much better than he had expected. 
True, he had bungled confoundedly, and 
made a pretty mess of it, — and there would 
be the very devil to pay w'hen mother and 
J Lilia heard of it, — but then it might have 
been so much worse ; he might have been 
tied up forever by this time but for that 
lucky accident with the picture ; but now, 
at all events, he w'as free, — free to love, at 
least, w'here he chose. 

However, he had no time to indulge in 
reflections. It was clear he could not 
remain longer in the house after w'hat 


had happened, and the best thing he 
could do now w'as to take himself off as 
quietly as possible. He would just speak 
to Mr. Harfleur, and leave with him his 
adieux for the young ladies, — that would 
be sufficient ; — and yet, there w^as one he 
w'ould like to see again just to say fare- 
well ; it might be a last farewell, for wdio 
could tell w^hither the fortunes of war 
might lead him? But no, perhaps he 
had better not trust himself wdth her 
now'; he had already played the deuce 
sufficiently for one evening, and there was 
no telling w'hat he might do if he were to 
see her again. Better keep out of that 
scrape at any rate ; and, besides, if she 
knew W'hat an infernal puppy he had 
been, how could he dare to look her in the 
face ? No, he w'ould not venture to speak 
to her 5 but if he could catch one glimpse 
of her, just to take a last look as one 
looks on the dead, there could be no harm 
in that. 

He made his way quietly through all 
the rooms, carefully avoiding an encounter 
w'ith Claude, and looking out eagerly for 
a vision of w'hite tulle dotted with pansies, 
but it was now'here to be seen ; so with a 
pang of secret disappointment he took up 
his hat and prepared to depart. The 
crowd had thinned out a good deal by 
this time, and those that remained had 
collected chiefly in the front part of the 
house ; so the better to escape notice, 
Audley made his w'ay back to the little 
cabinet where his interview with Claude 
had taken place. There was a private 
door opening from this retired apartment 
on the piazza, through which he could 
make his exit unobserved. It w'as on the 
w'estern side, that w'as so curtained by 
vines ; and as all this part of the house 
was pretty well deserted, he thought he 
w'as in no danger of encountering any 
one, when, as he was hastily descending 
a little flight of steps half hidden by vines 
that led into the garden, he met a couple 
returning from a promenade, — and the 
lady w'ore white tulle dotted with pan- 
sies. 

“ What ! going so early. Colonel Mal- 
vern ?” she said, observing his hat and 
riding-whip in his hand. Just then the 
band struck up an inspiring galop ; and 
the young gentleman, her companion, 
having a partner engaged, uttered a hur- 
ried “ Excuse me, Miss Harfleur,” and left 
her alone with Malvern. 

“ Yes, I must be off now,” he answered ; 
and I was just regretting that I would 
have to go without seeing you. I have 
been looking all over the house for you. 


THE BLONDE CURL. 


149 


while that impudent fellow Thorndale 
had you hid away in the shrubbery.” 

‘‘But why must you go so early?” 

ersisted Ruth. “ Can’t you stay till the 

all is over?” 

Andley shook his head. 

“ That is unpardonable,” she said, 
laughing. “ I thought I heard you en- 
gage yourself to Claude for the last set 
but one, and I am sure I have you on my 
card for another waltz and a schottische ; 
so you see, colonel, you can’t get off yet 
without most flagrant dereliction towards 
two ladies, at least.” 

“ I am sorry,” he said ; “ but even at the 
expense of sacrificing so great a pleasure 
as dancing^ with you, I must persist ’in 
leaving. To be candid with you. Miss 
Harfleur, I have just quarreled with your 
sister, and it would be improper for me 
to remain longer under this roof.” 

“ Quarreled with my sister I’^ ex- 
claimed Ruth, with sudden agitation. 

And what could you have quarreled 
with Claude about?” 

“ I rather think it was about you,” he 
answered. 

“ Me !” she cried. “ And why should 
you have quarreled about me?” 

“ Ay, why should I,” said Audley, with 
a smile in which there was less of mirth 
than sadness, “ since you have never given 
me the right? But it is done, and I must 
go. I hope you are not going to quarrel 
with me, too, at the last moment, and we 
not likely ever to meet again.” 

“Never again!” and she raised her 
eyes to his face with a look of such 
sorrowful surprise that Audley felt his 
good resolutions fast melting away, and 
saw that unless the interview were brought 
to a close quickly he Avould be tempted to 
play the fool again in spite of himself. 

“ No,” he answered, intending to make 
his words very decisive. “ Even if I 
should escape the contingency that every 
soldier is liable to, there are reasons. Miss 
Harfleur, which will forbid my ever re- 
turning here. At the end of the war, 
which I fear is approaching only too 
rapidly, when I shall have established a 
home for my mother and sister out of 
such wrecks of our fortune as I can collect, 
I must then think of carving out a new 
career for myself. In the disastrous days 
that are coming there will be no place for 
me in America, and I will have to seek 
my fortune in some foreign land ; and so, 
unless some strange destiny should send 
you wandering over the sea, our paths are 
not likely to cross again. I shall not at- 
tempt to express my sorrow at parting. 


nor the gratitude with which I shall 
always remember my sojourn here, be- 
cause no words can do justice to either. 
The gra,titude will always live in my 
heart, and the regret is half untold even 
in that bitter word which I am now com- 
pelled to speak, — farewell.” 

“Farewell,” echoed Ruth. Her head 
drooped like a withered flower as she 
spoke, and Audley felt a scalding tear 
fall on the hand he had extended to clasp 
hers. It was the last drop that made the 
cup run over. Loosing her rosy fingers 
suddenly from his clasp, and catching 
her face in both his hands, he turned it 
up to the moon, and saw her eyes swim- 
ming in tears. He could resist the 
promptings of his own heart no longer. 

“Oh, Ruth, Ruth! my darling! my 
treasure ! my only love !” he cried, laying 
her face against his breast, “ tell me that 
these tears are for me, tell me thaf you 
think me worth a single drop from those 
beautiful eyes, and your tears will be 
pearls that purchase me the happiness 
angels might envy.” 

She threw her white arms about his 
neck and nestled closer to his bosom, 
while Audley covered her lips with rap- 
turous kisses. 

“ Audley,” she sobbed, as soon as her 
emotion would permit her to speak, 
“ take back those cruel words ; don’t say 
that you will never come back again, or 
you will kill me.” 

“ If you bid me come,” he said, press- 
ing her closer to his heart, “ there is no 
power in heaven or earth to keep me 
back. The grave itself could not shut me 
from your presence, but my spirit would 
come from the shadowy land to hover near 
you, and find its heaven in you. Yes, my 
soul, my bride, my wife, — ah, Ruth, only 
promise me that I may one day call you 
by that sweet name, and I would come 
from heaven itself to claim my right.” 

He was terribly in earnest now, — he 
who had been fooling and dawdling all 
his life, — he had learned at last what 
love really was. All his sage worldly 
maxims were scattered to the winds, — 
all considerations of prudence, policy, 
worldly ambition, melted in the flame of 
this new passion, that had been kindling 
unawares in his breast, till it burst forth 
in uncontrollable might, and overpowered 
every other feeling. It never occurred 
to him now that he was playing the fool, 
because the girl in his arms had neither 
name nor fortune; he never paused to 
think what his mother and sister would 
say, what the world would say, or, worse 


150 


A FAMILY SECRET. 


still, how the world would go with a 
foolish young couple who had not a stiver 
between them ; and if all these considera- 
tions had burst upon him at once, they 
would not have moved him a hair. He 
was a new man, changed in a twinkling, 
like one born again under the regen- 
erating influence of love. To him at that 
moment there was no world outside the 
white arms that encircled his neck, no 
heaven beyond the light of those beauti- 
ful eyes that looked so lovingly into his 
own. 

As for Ruth, the joy of the moment 
was alloyed to her with the thought of 
parting. The good Book says that per- 
fect love casteth out fear,” but, if this is 
true, women’s love is nev^r perfect, for, 
the more they love, the greater are their 
fears. There is always a certain sense of 
foreboding mingled with the love that 
woman bears to man, as if all the woes 
and heartaches love had cost her, since 
the first man spoke his first chiding 
words to his companion in Paradise, had 
impressed themselves upon her race. No 
sooner is love born in a woman’s heart, 
than a thousand fears spring up beside 
it. She loves not timidly, but anxiously, 
with a certain fearful looking for of evil 
days to come, when love, alas ! may be love 
no more. So Ruth, even in the rapture of 
that blessed moment, was thinking of the 
parting that must come, and her first 
words, after that ecstatic silence which 
always succeeds the sudden conscioufs- 
ness of some new-born joy, betrayed the 
course of her anxious thoughts. 

“ Dearest,” she said, raising her head 
from her lover’s breast and looking him 
timidly in the face, “ we are not to say 
good-by to-night, are we? You will 
come again to-morrow, if only for a 
minute, just to let me look at you once 
more ?” 

“ Come to-morrow ! That I will, my 
darling, if you think me worth robbing 
these bright eyes of their slumber for. 
I must come early, you know, before the 
rest of the family are astir, for I want 
you all to myself.” 

“ Oh, nobody will be astir here much 
before noon,” Ruth answered. “ They 
will all be tired after the ball, but I can 
be ready as early as you please, — at sun- 
rise, if you say so.” 

“No, I need not put your affection to 
such a severe test yet awhile,” he re- 
plied, playfully stroking the beautiful 
golden curls that had burst from their 
bindings and fell in glittering masses 
over his shoulder. “I am not due at 


headquarters before noon, so, if you will 
meet me in the little cabinet yonder at 
eight o’clock, and leave the side door 
open so that I can get in without disturb- 
ing the household, we can spend another 
precious hour together.’^ 

As Audley ceased speaking there was 
a rustling in the shrubbery behind them, 
and the figure of the pious Aeneas sud- 
denly emerged into the moonlight. He 
turned his eyes upon Ruth as he passed 
with a look of malignant triumph, then 
vanished again into the darkness. Ruth 
shuddered as she met his glance, for he 
always produced upon her the effect of 
having seen a snake or a toad. There 
was something sinister in his look that 
reminded her of the threat he had made 
when they last spoke together, and ever 
since that day a secret dread of him had 
mingled with her loathing. 

“ He has heard us !” she cried, in a 
terrified whisper, as he passed out of 
sight. And instinctively she clung closer 
to her lover, as if conscious of some evil 
presence seeking to glide between them. 

“What if he has?” Audley answered, 
with a reassuring smile. “ I am ready to 
make good what I have said to you this 
night before the whole world Avhenever 
you will name the day.” And he pressed 
her to his heart in an embrace that 
seemed to defy the whole world to tear 
her from him. 

How long they remained there in the 
moonlight, heart to heart, hand to hand, 
immersed in love’s sweet baptism of de- 
light, neither of them could tell, but the 
last guest had departed and the lights 
were out in the house when Audley 
mounted his horse and rode reluctantly 
away. 


CHAPTER XXXIII. 

^NEAS MAKES A REVELATION. 

Next morning, long before the clock 
struck eight, Ruth was at the appointed 
rendezvous, busily employed with her 
own hands making the little room look 
tidy and cheerful for her lover’s recep- 
tion. Joy, like grief, banishes' slumber 
from the eyes, but it does not rob them 
of their brightness like vigils kept in 
sorrow and in tears. Ruth had not 
closed her eyes all night for very glad- 
ness, but they were so luminous with in- 


^NEAS MAKES A REVELATION. 


151 


ward joy, and her whole face so radiant 
with anticipation, that she had never ap- 
peared more enchantingly lovely than on 
that bright, rosy morning, as she went 
gliding about in the fulfillment of her 
pretty womanly task, singing to herself 
the while for very lightness of heart. At 
last, when she had done everything she 
could think of to make the pretty little 
chamber more worthy of the king that 
was coming, and there was no longer an 
excuse for so much as retouching a vase 
or giving an additional pucker to a win- 
dow-curtain, she surveyed the place with 
a look of quiet satisfaction ; and then, 
throwing a light gauzy veil over her 
head, started out to wait for her lover at 
the garden-gate. As she opened the door 
the shadow of a man fell across the thresh- 
old. Her heart gave a great bound, and 
she sprang eagerly forward, but shrank 
back again with loathing and disappoint- 
ment when she saw that the man who cast 
the shadow was ^neas Tadpole. 

“ I am not the person you were expect- 
ing to meet, Miss Ilarfleur,” he said, with 
an officiously knowing air, which was even 
more offensive than the look of covert 
malice that accompanied it. Kuth was 
about to demand what right he had to sup- 
pose she was expecting any one, but re- 
membering that he had seen enough the 
night before to give him the advantage in 
a retort, she checked herself, and replied 
instead, — 

“ You are a person, Mr. Tadpole, whose 
presence I always desire even less than I 
expect it.” 

“ And you will desire it less than ever, 
I guess,” said the pious JEneas, lowering 
his voice and approaching a step nearer, 
“ when you hear what I have got to say.” 

He was talking to a woman now, — a 
woman whom he felt that he had in his 
power, and for once in his life he spoke 
boldly. Ruth felt a secret dread come 
over her in spite of her high words, but 
she showed no sign of striking her flag to 
.^neas. 

“ I have already told you, Mr. Tad- 
pole,” she replied, haughtily, “that noth- 
ing you may have to say can be of any 
consequence to me.” And she retreated 
into the house, hoping to cut short the un- 
welcome interview. 

“ I beg your pardon,” said ^neas, fol- 
lowing her, “ but what I have to say is of 
consequence to you, and ITl make it of 
very serious consequence, too •, you’ll 
think so,” he added, coarsely, “when you 
see how it changes your prospects with 
Colonel Malvern;” and his sneaky little 


eyes gleamed like a cat’s in the dark as 
he turned them upon her with a look of 
vengeful malice. Ruth would not conde- 
scend to answer this coarse insinuation. 

“ Will you leave me alone, Mr. Tad- 
pole,” she repeated, turning and facing 
him angrily, “ or is it your intention to 
force yourself upon me when you know 
that your presence is not desired?” 

“ Such is my intention,” said ^neas, 
coolly, and he seated himself on the very 
spot where Malvern had sat the night be- 
fore to begin the tale of love to Claude 
that had miscarried so opportunely. 

“ You rejected me once with scorn and 
insult. Miss Harfleur,” he continued, re- 
suming the sanctified drawl that long 
habit had made a second nature to him, 
“ when I offered you a virtuous and hon- 
orable affection ; but it is the duty of a 
minister of the gospel to bear with con- 
tumely, and I might have held my peace 
if you had not listened to the addresses of 
another. So long as you alone were con- 
cerned, I might never have allowed my- 
self to disclose what I know of the shame 
that belongs to you, for a minister of the 
gospel should harbor no malice. Miss Har- 
fleur. But since you have seen proper to 
enter into engagements which will involve 
another in the disgrace and infamy which 
attach to your name, I feel it my duty as 
a minister of the gospel to speak. I would 
not have shrunk from that infamy myself. 
Miss Harfleur, but was ready to extend 
to you the protection of my own honor- 
able name and virtuous affection, for it 
behooves a minister of the gospel to be 
humble ; but a proud man like Colonel 
Malvern will hardly choose a bastard for 
his wife if he knows it, and you will find 
that your turn has now come to be rejected 
with scorn and contumely.” 

The malignant satisfaction with which 
he dwelt upon the last words betrayed 
clearly enough the motive that prompted 
him, but to Ruth at that moment his 
motives weighed for nothing. The vague 
dread she had felt when he first began to 
speak suddenly took definite shape, and 
in that horrid word he had so brutally 
spoken she seemed all at once to see the 
whole mystery of her life revealed. No, 
she did not dare to doubt that she was 
really what he had called her, and the 
conviction rushed upon her with a vio- 
lence that almost took her senses away. 
Why else had she been banished from the 
spot she had but yesterday dared to claim 
as home, and thrust as it were into the 
very jaws of death as one for whom there 
was no place in the world ? Oh, that the 


152 


A FAMILY SECRET. 


grave had swallowed her up before this 
black gulf of infamy opened at her feet 1 
For a moment actual darkness seemed to 
encompass her ; her head swam, her 
strength failed, and her ears were ringing 
with a strange and terrible sound, as 
though all the powers of nature were 
shouting that horrid word in proclama- 
tion of her shame. One thought only 
shaped itself clear and distinct amid the 
wild whirlwind of horror and confusion 
that was sweeping through her brain, — 
the thought of separation from Malvern. 
But for that she could have borne to be 
the thing ^neas had called her, could 
have welcomed it almost for the relief of 
feeling that the hard conflict between 
duty and nature was over, and that she 
had no longer to reproach herself for her 
unfilial feelings towards Mr. Harfleur. 
It was the thought of losing Audley that 
bowed her head in despair and gave to 
-dEneas’s revenge its sting. She did not 
think of Malvern’s casting her off, but 
she felt, with a woman’s pride, that the 
thing she was could not and must not 
consent to be his wife, ^neas saw where 
the arrow had struck, and eyed her with 
the look of a snake preparing to devour 
its prey. 

“ Will you listen to what I have to say 
now,” he resumed, after noting the effect 
of his last words, “ or would you prefer 
that I should relate it to Colonel Malvern 
first?” 

‘‘ Speak at once, since I must hear,” 
said Ruth faintly, and she sank into a 
chair pale and dejected, but With a look 
of unblenching fortitude, like one who 
lays his head upon the block determined, 
since it must be so, to die nobly. An- 
other man, no matter how deeply he had 
been wronged, beholding her thus would 
have felt that his revenge was more than 
complete *, to the pious ^neas it seemed 
that his was just begun, and he proceeded 
to stretch his victim upon a rack of the 
keenest torture. Settling himself upon 
the sofa and coughing a little dry cough 
of preparation, — for even he felt at a loss 
how to go on with the atrocity he had 
begun, — he proceeded to relate, with 
brutal unreserve, the story of poor Nettie 
Bruen’s sad career which George Dalton 
had already told to Audley Malvern, only 
detailing the incidents more minutely, 
like one thoroughly acquainted with the 
secrets of the family, and coloring his 
narrative so as to make Ruth’s mother 
appear more guilty than unfortunate. 
Ruth listened to his coarse recital with 
forced calmness. When he had finished. 


she rose from her seat and tried to walk 
to the door, but her limbs failed under 
her, and she sank back into her chair 
with a groan that made even j®neas Tad- 
pole feel something like a qualm. At 
that moment Audley Malvern entered. 
He started, surprised and shocked at the 
pale, agonfzed face that met his gaze. lie 
had come with a lover’s greeting on his 
lips, and his arms open to receive her, 
but she rose and retreated as he advanced 
towards her, while Audley, suddenly be- 
coming aware of .(Bneas’s presence, 
checked his lover-like ardor, and be- 
stowed upon that exemplary young man 
a look ardent enough in its way no 
doubt, but .not with the ardor of affection, 
lie gave ^Rneas no other sign of recog- 
nition, but moved across the room to 
Ruth, and said, in a voice so low that his 
words were inaudible to A5neas, — 

Something has pained you, my pre- 
cious one, — come into the garden, away 
from that intruder, and tell me all about 
it ; it is my privilege now, you know, to 
share every sorrow of yours.” 

He attempted to take her hand as he 
spoke, but she waved him off, and turned 
away her face. Ruth felt that she had no 
right now to listen to words that were 
intended, it seemed to her, not for the 
woman she was to-day, but for the one 
she had thought herself last night, — 
so completely had Eneas’s revelation 
changed her identity. She told herself 
that Audley must be made acquainted 
immediately with what she had just 
heard, and released forever from all ties 
to her. It was to hide the anguish of this 
thought that she averted her face and 
shrunk away from his touch. 

Audley knew not what to make of her. 
He did not think anything a contemptible 
creature like Aeneas might have said 
could influence her against him, — indeed, 
if he judged her character correctly, he 
did not think she would suffer any living 
being to accuse him in her presence, or 
that she could ever be set against him, 
except by his own act. Then he remem- 
bered the little drama in which he had 
been an actor the night before, in this 
very chamber, and his own conscience 
began to accuse him. He felt now, as the 
possibility of losing her dawned upon his 
mind, how inexpressibly dear to him she 
was, and what a blank the world would 
be without her, — no, no, the thought was 
intolerable now that he had once known 
the joy of possessing her. 

“ Ruth,’^ he whispered, approaching 
once more the spot where she stood, and 


/ 


uENEAS MAKES A REVELATION, 


153 


fixing his eyes with a pleading look on 
her face, ‘‘ tell me what all this means. 
There should he no concealment between 
us now ; and I think, after all that hap- 
pened last night, I have a right to ask 
what your present conduct means.” 

“ He can tell you better than I,” gasped 
Ruth, shrinking away ^rom him, and 
glancing towards ^neas ; ‘‘ and when you 
have heard his story. Colonel Malvern, 
you will then, since I desire it, regard all 
that passed between us last night as 
though it had never happened. Mr. 
Tadpole,” she added, raising her voice 
and addressing .dSneas, with a look of 
deadly calmness, “ you will please relate 
now to Colonel Malvern everything you 
have just told to me, without omitting or 
palliating a single circumstance.” 

She left Malvern’s side, and, seating 
herself at a table, rested her elbow upon 
it, and, supporting her head on her hand, 
remained motionless, with her eyes fixed 
on the floor, and a look of desperate calm- 
ness in her face. Audley, hurt at her 
words and her manner, did not follow 
her, but, folding his arms upon his breast, 
stood waiting for the pious iEneas to 
speak. Mr. Tadpole, although he had 
come there intending that Malvern should 
receive the information he had to impart, 
felt himself taken by surprise. He had 
found it easy enough to wound and insult* 
a woman when there was no one by to 
take her part *, but it was not so easy to 
frame what he had to tell in language that 
would suit the ears of a man who always 
treated women with chivalrous deference 
himself and exacted the same from others. 
He felt instinctively that it would not do 
to use the same language to Ruth in 
Malvern’s presence that he had used in 
speaking to her alone. In fact, what he 
had to tell was not a very chivalrous 
thing to say under any circumstances, 
especially when the lady concerned has a 
champion, and he began to feel very 
awkward about saying it. He had appre- 
ciated Ruth’s character too well to doubt 
that she would immediately* acquaint her 
lover with what she had heard, and release 
him from his engagement; but he had 
not expected her to throw the burden 
upon him in that curt way, and he began 
now, for the first time, to entertain mis- 
givings as to the possible effect his dis- 
closures might have upon Malvern. He 
did not suspect that the latter was already 
acquainted with the story of Ruth’s birth, 
and he had taken for granted that the 
intense family pride of the Malveims, to- 
gether with the hopeless pecuniary em- 


barrassments under which they were 
laboring, would alike operate to prevent 
the proudest and the neediest of their race 
from taking as his wife a woman whose 
only inheritance was a pedigree of shame 
and dishonor. Such a step on the part 
of a man in Audley’ s situation would 
certainly appear sufficiently desperate to 
warrant almost any presumption against 
his taking it ; but ^neas had not taken 
into account those stirrings of strong pas- 
sion which, when they once do move men 
of Audley’ s character, override all con- 
siderations of prudence, reason — of com- 
mon sense itself, ^^neas thought now 
that he detected something in Malvern’s 
face that made him suspect all at once 
it might not be altogether safe to interfere 
with him where his affections were con- 
cerned. Men seldom bear you gratitude 
for telling them disagreeable things, and 
what man yet ever found it agreeable to 
hear anything to the detriment of the 
woman on whom he had set his heart? 

As considerations like these flitted 
through ^neas Tadpole’s mind, he be- 
gan to feel that the task he had taken 
upon himself was a very ungracious one, 
and he sat clearing his throat and cough- 
ing behind his hand, in abortive efforts 
to make a beginning, until Audley lost 
all patience. 

Ho you intend complying with Miss 
Harfleur’s request?” he said, sharply, 
and directed at JEneas a glance that was 
anything but reassuring. 

“ Oh, ah — ^y-e-e-e-s, certainly,” stam- 
mered iEneas, jerking the words out 
spasmodically, “ but the duty is such a 
— ahem, — painful one, and a — consider- 
ation for Miss Harfleur’s feelings ” 

“ As for my feelings,” said Ruth, in- 
terrupting him, ‘‘ pray do not let regard 
for them trouble you any more now than 
it did when you were speaking with me 
alone.” 

^neas coughed more violently than 
ever, and allowed Malvern to stride im- 
patiently up and down the room several 
times before he recovered his voice suffi- 
ciently to begin his recital. At last, 
gathering himself up on the edge of the 
sofa as though he were sitting on pins, 
and fixing his eyes piously on the floor, 
he contrived to get out by hitches a very 
much abbreviated and ameliorated ver- 
sion of the story he had just told to 
Ruth. When he had finished, Audley 
went and stood behind Ruth’s chair, and 
rested his hand on the back of it. In 
so doing he contrived, unperceived - by 
iEneas, just to touch one of her curls. 


154 


A FAMILY SECRET. 


and Ruth felt in that touch that he was 
still her own. 

The pious ^neas was quite unprepared 
for the coolness with which his commu- 
nication was received. Audley betrayed 
neither surprise nor anger, but, standing 
there with his hand on the back of Ruth’s 
chair, eyed ^Rneas for some seconds with 
a look of quiet disdain, and then asked, — 
Have you finished, Mr. Tadpole?” 

“All that I consider it necessary to 
say,” responded ^neas. 

“ And pray, why did you consider it 
necessary to say this much ?” 

j$lneas screwed himself a little nearer 
the edge of the sofa, as though the pins 
were becoming too much for him, and 
found relief in a violent fit of coughing. 

“If you can’t answer that question,” 
continued Audley, “ perhaps you can tell 
how you became possessed of this valua- 
ble information.” 

“ My honored father,” answered ^neas, 
“ stood in intimate relations with the 
family when these things happened. He 
was their confidential friend and spiritual 
adviser in their troubles.” 

“ And Mr. Harfleur’s confidential 
agent, perhaps,” suggested Audley, re- 
membering certain circumstances in 
Ruth’s childhood that had excited his 
suspicions. 

jEneas coughed again uneasily, and 
his seat became so thorny that he seemed 
in danger of wriggling himself off the 
sofa altogether. Ruth was first to break 
the awkward silence that succeeded 
Audley’ s last thrust. 

“ Mr. Tadpole,” she said, rising, and 
speaking with apparent self-possession, 
“ you once boasted that you had it in 
your power to render me a signal service 
in revealing something that you knew 
concerning me, and, little as you in- 
tended it, you have rendered me such a 
service to-day ; and now that there seems 
to be no further occasion for speaking to 
me, I hope you will confer upon me the 
still greater favor of relieving me imme- 
diately and forever of your presence.” 

Audley turned sharp round upon 
^neas as Ruth uttered these words, as 
though a new light had suddenly flashed 
upon him. 

“ But, before you go, you wdll oblige 
me by explaining what that service was 
you had it in your power to render Miss 
Ilarfleur,” he said, fixing a penetrating 
glance upon Aeneas. 

Mr. Tadpole appeared more embar- 
rassed by this simple question than he 
had done yet. He retired behind his 


hand once more to take refuge in cough- 
ing, then, raising his eyes for an instant, 
he replied, with saintly magnanimity, — 

“ I only meant that I Avas willing to 
share Avith her my humble means, and to 
extend to her such protection as the re- 
spectable name and virtuous affection of 
a minister of the gospel could.” 

This was more than Audley could stand, 
and, before the words were out of .Eneas’s 
mouth, he had seized him by the nape of 
the neck and hurried him very unceremo- 
niously out of the room. 

“You miserable scoundrel!” he cried, 
when he had got him outside the door, 
“if you ever dare to mention her name 
in the same sentence with yours again, 
I’ll shake the breath out of your body !” 
And he helped him doAvn the steps with a 
shove that nearly took the pious Aeneas 
off his feet; but that exemplary young 
minister of the gospel did not return to 
resent the indignity. 


CHAPTER XXXIV. 

* A CLUE TO THE MYSTERY. 

When Audley returned to Ruth, she 
was standing where he had left her, — 
pale, dejected, motionless, as though every 
power had forsaken her, save the power 
of suffering. He passed his arm tenderly 
round her and laid her drooping head 
back on his shoulder. She made a feeble 
effort to resist, but he only clasped her 
the closer in his embrace. 

“My darling,” he said, in his tenderest 
tone, while he looked lovingly into the 
tearful, averted eyes, “ I could haA^e 
wished to spare you the knoAvledge of 
this altogether, or, if that were impossi- 
ble, that it might at least have been re- 
serA^'ed till the time when you should hear 
it, if need be, from my own lips. I think 
I might have spared you some of the pain 
that reptile has inflicted ; for I am con- 
vinced he has told only the worst half of 
what he knoAvs, and that the chief villain 
in these deplorable transactions was — not 
your father.” 

“You knew it before, then?” cried 
Ruth, catching eagerly at his Avords, and 
looking up into his face with all her soul 
in her eyes ; “ you kneAv it before — before 
you said to me what you did last night?’' 


A CLUE TO THE MYSTERY. 


155 


Forgive her, reader, if at that moment 
her mind was too full of her lover to 
give a thought to the vindication of her 
parent. 

“I knew it before I ever knew that I 
loved you,” said Audley, imprinting a 
kiss on her forehead. ‘‘ It was all made 
known to me long ago by a friend who 
had your good and mine at heart; but 
you see I loved you in spite of it, and 
always will love you in spite of every- 
thing,” he added, as he pressed her to his 
heart in a passionate embrace. 

She had seen her duty clearly from the 
first, and resolved to do it, but it seemed 
to grow harder and harder every moment. 
She had not intended that anything like 
this should take place. She had meant to 
speak to him as soon as -®neas was 
gone, and release him at once and for- 
ever from all promises to her. She 
would speak calmly and decisively, and 
then fly from his presence before he could 
have time to shake her purpose ; but to 
resolve and to do are so difierent. All 
her self-possession had deserted her as 
soon as she found herself alone with 
Audley, and she stood in helpless silence 
before the man she loved, unable to speak 
the words that would free him from an 
infamous entanglement, unable to resist 
his encircling arms, unable, in short, to 
do anything that she had resolved to do. 
It was no use now thinking about calm- 
ness and decision ; it was no use trying 
to conceal from him the agony their part- 
ing would cost her ; that was beyond her 
power ; but for his sake the sacrifice must 
be made, and she must say at once what 
she had resolved to say. 

“ Oh, Audley I Audley !” she cried, 
struggling to free herself from his em- 
brace, “ how could you, knowing all this, 
say to me what you said last night ? Why 
did you ever ask me to be your wife, 
knowing how impossible it was?” 

“ I did not know it was impossible,” 
said Audley ; “and I asked you because 
I loved you. Can a man give a better 
reason for asking a woman to be his 
wife?” 

“ But if she cannot make him happy,” 
said Buth, ^adly ; “ if she is to be as a 
millstone about his neck, dragging him 
down under a load of infamy such as I 
must bear about with me all my days ; 
oh, Audley, it is impossible ! With your 
proud name, your lofty station in life, 
your ambition, your brilliant reputation, 
to tarnish all these ” 

“ Never mind all these,” said Audley, 
stopping her mouth with a kiss. “ Since 


I knew you I have learned that there is 
something I prize more than all the tri- 
umphs of ambition.” 

“ But your mother and sister ” 

“ My mother and sister are very dear 
to me, Ruth, I admit,” said Audley, in- 
terrupting her, “ but my wife — for my 
wife you are even now in the sight of 
heaven — is dearer still. I am aware of 
the duty I owe to my mother, and would 
make any other sacrifice for her sake, but 
between a man and his chosen wife e\en 
a mother has no right to interfere. 
family will, I do not doubt, raise many 
objections to our marriage, and may not 
be disposed to receive you pleasantly at 
first, but when they know you as I do 
their prejildices wdll vanish like mine *, if 
not, they must give me up, for I will 
suffer no human being, not even a 
mother, to come between you and me. 
Believe me, Ruth, I would give up the 
whole world for your sake and think 
myself a gainer.” 

“ So you believe now, Audley,” she 
answered; “but the time might come 
when you would regret your choice. 
Golden hair will change to gray, the 
softest cheeks will be furrowed by care, 
and the brightest eyes grow dim with 
weeping. I do not doubt your love, Aud- 
ley ; but a heavy load will weary in time, 
and by and by, when you find yourself 
clogged and cumbered at every step by 
the millstone that you have tied about 
your neck, you might sometimes ask 
yourself if a faded old wife, on whom all 
the world looked askance, was worth the 
sacrifice. Oh, my love, rather than cause 
you one such regret I would lie down and 
die at your feet.” 

Audley seized both her hands, and, 
drawing her to him, held her fast while 
he gazed steadily into her face with a 
sad, reproachful look. 

“And can you think so meanly of me, 
Ruth,” he said, at last, “ and yet profess 
to love me, to believe in my affection? 
Question your own heart and see if you 
know what love is. You say that you 
love me ; do you think that your heart 
would change if I were unfortunate, un- 
happy, disgraced?” 

“ Oh, Audley, you are cruel, even to 
ask it !” 

“Would you cast me off and desert 
me if disease or accident were to make 
me a burden that would drag you to the 
earth all your days, and wear your life 
out with watching and waiting on an in- 
valid husband? If shame and dishonor 
even were to come, and I were cast into 


156 


A FAMILY SECRET, 


a felon’s cell, would you forsake me, 
Ruth?” 

‘‘ Audley ! Audley ! you know better 
than that.” 

And yet, you think I am to be fright- 
ened away by the scarecrow of a censori- 
ous world. Ah, Ruth, you don’t know 
yet half how well 1 love you.” 

He was driving her very hard, and she 
felt that her power of resistance was fast 
failing. 

Audley,” she cried, you know I did 
not mean that ; it is not that I doubt you, 
but I love you too much to be willing 
that you should sacrifice yourself for me.” 

“ A^ for that, Ruth,” he replied, fold- 
ing her again to his heart, I am afraid 
all the sacrifices will be on your side. I 
am asking you to become the wife of a 
ruined vagabond, who has nothing to 
ofier but a life of hardship and privation, 

■ — it may be of want. I have not a dol- 
lar in the world that I can call my own, 
and worse than all, I have not even the 
knowledge of how to make a living. 
Born the heir to unbounded wealth, I 
was never taught the first lesson that 
every man should learn, how to earn his 
OAvn bread, and you see me to-day the most 
helpless and destitute and contemptible 
of all God’s creatures — an aristocratic 
beggar. Once I was mean and base, as 
well as miserable, for I was a beggarly 
fortune-hunter, and had even dared to 
set my covetous eyes upon your sister’s 
wealth. But you saved me from that, 
Ruth ; the love of you broke in upon my 
darkened heart, and the good you wrought 
in me was stronger than the temptations 
of my own evil passions. Would you 
cast me off now and leave me a prey to 
them again? No, stay by my side, finish 
the work you have begun, and you may 
make something of me yet. Desperate 
as my fortunes are, I feel more of a man 
to-day than I ever felt in my life before. 
I am done with skulking about in search 
of an heiress to live on her money, and 
am ready to struggle with the world on 
my own account. I shall have to battle 
at a sad disadvantage I know, and my 
chances of success are small. I have no 
profession but my sword, which seldom 
wins a man aught but barren honors, 
and even that will soon be taken from 
me, unless I can find employment in some 
foreign army. The life of a soldier of 
fortune is not a very tempting one, Ruth, 
but such as it is, I ask you to share it 
with me. My love is not unselfish like 
yours *, no, — I would drag you down to 
ihe very grave rather than be parted from 


you. I ask you to give up friends, home, 
country, everything, to share poverty, 
exile, and danger, to lead a life of toil 
and unrest, and maybe find yourself a 
heart-broken young widow some day, after 
a great battle in some far-off land. Do 
you love me enough, Ruth, to dare all 
this for my sake?” 

He had not mistaken his ground : 
this was the kind of appeal she could not 
resist. 

“ I love you enough for anything,” she 
answered, yielding without a struggle to 
his embrace *, “ and I’ll go wherever you 
wish, and do whatever you ask. But, 
Audley,” she added, after a pause, “our 
future prospects need not be so very for- 
lorn, for though we are both without for- 
tune, I have that here which would soon 
make your wife the richest-dowered bride 
in America.” 

She put her hand to her throat as she 
spoke, and warbled a few notes to show 
what she meant, but Audley shook his 
head. He had not yet freed himself from 
all the prejudices of his class. 

“No,” he said, decisively. “ I cannot 
sit down tamely and let my wife support 
me. I may have been that sort of a fel- 
low once, but it’s over now; and, besides, 
I won’t have my wife set up as a gazing 
stock for every ruffian that chooses to pay 
his money for the privilege of gaping at 
her. I am such a niggard of my treasure 
that I feel as if I could knock down any 
other man merely for presuming to look 
at her. I must have the very music of 
your voice all to myself. Yes, Ruth, you 
must consent to make this one sacrifice 
more for me, — and I believe it is the hard- 
est of all I have yet required, — to give up 
even your art, or those brilliant triumphs 
of your art, which you are so well quali- 
fied to win. I am very exacting, Ruth ; I 
would have you love me solely, me, ego- 
tist that I am, even above your art. Can 
you do this?” 

“ I love you above everything in heaven 
or earth,” she answered, “ and would give 
up my own soul for you ; but, Audley, you 
must make me a promise, too, before you 

“ I’ll promise anything, except to give 
you up.” 

“ It is not that exactly,” she said, 
“ though it might lead to that in the 
end.” 

“ Then you needn’t ask it. You 
have promised before heaven to be my 
wife, Ruth, and before heaven I’ll hold 
you to your word, until you wish to 
be released for your own sake. When 


A CLUE TO THE MYSTERY, 


157 


you tell rae that you have ceased to love 
me, then, and only then, will I ever con- 
sent to release you from your promise.” 
There was such terrible earnestness in 
his voice and look as he uttered these 
words that Ruth almost shuddered. 

“ No, no; it was not that I was think- 
ing about, — you know I can never cease 
to love you, Audley; but- ” 

“ Well, — but what?” 

“ When you go away from me and have 
had time to reflect on what you have done, 
you will be less influenced by passion 
and may learn to take a very different 
view of things. Now promise me, Aud- 
ley, for the very love you bear me, if you 
should ever be conscious of a single re- 
gret, a single doubt, that you will, before 
it is too late, tell me frankl}^, and let me 
release you : promise me this, Audley, 
and I shall feel less self-reproach for the 
wrong I am doing in consenting to be 
your wife.” 

Yes, yes,” said Audley, laughing. 

I promise that whenever I feel a desire 
to get rid of you I will let you know. 
And now that we have settled this matter, 
come and sit down by me : our time is 
short, and I have something to say to you 
more than I expected when I came here, 
— something that concerns you nearly.” 

He led her to the sofa, and, seating 
himself beside her, took her hand in his 
own, and looked closely at the gem that 
glittered on her finger. 

“ Do you know, Ruth,” he began, after 
a little pause, “ that I suspect you have 
here a clue to something more than that 
brute Tadpole has revealed ?” 

Ruth started. She remembered Mr. 
Harfleur’s look when he first beheld that 
jeAvel on her finger, and the strange 
words of the man in the church-yard, 
and she began to feel as if it were en- 
chanted, like some of those magic rings 
she had read about when a child in the 
^‘Arabian Nights.” 

You know I told yon,” Audley con- 
tinued, without waiting for her to speak, 
“ that I believed Mr. Tadpole knew more 
than he chose to reveal, and I will now 
tell you a circumstance lie did not men- 
tion, — whether he was aware of it or not 
I cannot say. George Dalton, when he 
told me your mother’s story, — for it was 
from him, Ruth, that I first heard it, — 
spoke of a ring that disappeared very 
mysteriously a few months before you 
were born, — a ring that she prized very 
highly, for it had been given her by your 
father, whom she loved devotedly. The 
description he gave of this ring — for he 


had often heard it spoken of by others — 
answers exactly to the one now on your 
finger, even to the inscription inside, and 
that can hardly, by any possibility, be a 
mere coincidence.” 

“ I know it! I know it is the samel” 
cried Ruth, greatly agitated, “for both 
my uncle and Mr. Harfleur recognized it 
as soon as they saw it. Yes, that ex- 
plains the terrible look he gave me that 
night.” 

“Mr. Harfleur? When was it, and 
what did he say? Tell me about it. 
Ruth, as accurately as you can ; more 
may depend upon this than either of us 
are aware of.” 

Ruth then repeated as clearly as she 
could all that had passed between Mr. 
Harfleur and herself, when she encoun- 
tered him in the garden on the first 
evening of her arrival at the White 
House. Audley listened with rapt atten- 
tion. When she had finished, he took 
the ring from her finger and examined 
it again curiously. 

“ The strangest thing of all,” he said, 
as he replaced it on her finger, “ is that 
it should have come back to you in the 
way it did. Have you absolutely no clue 
to where it came from?” 

“No, none, — at least — there is some- 
thing more, iDut it is so strange that I 
hardly know whether it really happened 
or I only dreamed it. I feel as if I had 
seen a ghost whenever I think of it.” 

She then related her strange encounter 
in the church-yard, with all the man had 
said to her. Audley’ s interest became 
intense. 

“ Did you ever see or hear of that per- 
son again?” he asked. 

“ Yes, I saw him once afterwards, — 
the day of the tournament, — he was the 
prisoner they were going to hang. Oh, 
Audley, he gave me such a look as he 
passed where we were sitting, and then, 
when you left me, Mr. Harfleur was so 
terrible I It was then he made that black 
bruise on my arm you uncovered at the 
ball; don’t you remember? And he 
said terrible words to me. He cursed me, 
and said I was plotting his destruction ; 
and he spoke of the ring, too, and said that 
I had lied to him about it. ‘ You have 
seen him before,’ he said, ‘ and you lied 
about the ring ;’ — those were his very 
words ; I can never forget them, nor the 
look of that man. Audley, Audley, could 
it be ” 

The words died away on her lips, and 
she raised her eyes to his with a look 
that told only too plainly what thought 


158 


A FAMILY SECRET. 


had flashed upon her mind. The same 
idea had often occurred in a vague, 
shuddering way to Audley himself, and 
he was startled to find the same wild 
fancy shaping itself in Ruth’s mind. 

No, no, my darling, it cannot he,” 
he cried, forcing the horrid suggestion 
from his mind *, “ no, no, — hut he could 
throw some light on what we wish to 
know, I am confident. Whether the rest 
that remains to he told is better or 
worse than what you have learned 
already, I dare not conjecture. I have 
both hopes and fears ; but of one thing 
I feel assured, this mysterious being is 
possessed of knowledge more destructive 
to Mr. Ilarfleur than to you. It is plain 
that the two men not only know, but 
mutually hate and dread one another, 
and Mr. Ilarfleur would scruple at noth- 
ing to get him out of the way.’' 

Perhaps he has already done so,” 
said Ruth, with a shudder. 

“ He has done his best, I know,” said 
Audley, “ but as yet, I think, Avithout 
success. I will tell you about that some 
other time ; but now my hour with you 
is ended, and I am too selfish to let my 
last words be about another. Promise 
me again, Ruth, that you are mine 
forever; and if I should never come 
back ” 

“ I will go to you,” she whispered, in- 
terrupting him. 

^‘No, not that, Ruth,” he answered, 
shuddering at the deadly meaning in her 
words. “ I didn’t mean that, — but never 
forget me ; and now, good-by.” 

He kissed her tenderly, and in another 
moment Ruth was left alone, feeling as 
though the light of the w'orld had gone 
out. 


CHAPTER XXXV. 

THE PRIDE OF THE MALVERNS HAS A 
FALL. 

As Audley rode along, on his way 
back to Sandowne, he began to consider 
for the first time the rashness of the step 
he had taken. He had been so inflamed 
the night before with the sudden joy of 
possessing the only woman he had ever 
really loved, and felt so buoyant after 
throwing off the self-imposed shackles in 
which he had so long striven to warp 
and fetter his affections, that he gave no 


thought to the damaging consequences 
that might result to his worldly pros- 
pects from the course into which he had 
plunged. Still, no feeling of regret 
mingled with his reflections as he calmly 
reviewed the situation. He Avas fully 
sensible of the utter recklessness of the 
step he had taken, and acknoAvledged to 
himself that it was a bad business, — a 
deuced bad business, yet he had no de- 
sire to be out of it, — nay, more, he was 
half provoked Avith himself for feeling 
that he would not be out of it if he 
could. “ The devil take it all,” he said, 
as he concluded these consolatory reflec- 
tions, “ but that girl has made such a 
romantic fool of me, that hang me if I 
ain’t half pleased at the desperate state 
of affairs, just so that I can show her 
hoAv truly I love her.’' 

His chief source of anxiety now was 
about breaking the news to his mother 
and sister. They had gone to spend the 
night at Sandowne, after the ball, the 
bustle and confusion at the White House 
being too much for Mrs. Malvern’s nerves. 
It w^as due, both to them and to Ruth, 
that they should be informed of the 
relations existing between her and Aud- 
ley. He knew that they were expecting 
something very different, and Avould be 
terribly disappointed, and then there 
would be “ the devil of a row !” but there 
was no help for it, so he determined to 
make a bold dash and be done with it all 
at once. “ There’s one comfort,” he said 
to himself, as he came within sight of 
the house, it can’t last long, for I must 
be off at tAvelve, and it’s already past ten. 
Still, I think I’ll attack the enemy in de- 
tail ; I don’t Avant to make a roAV, and 
both of them together might be too much 
for my temper. If I can win J ulia over, 
or at least persuade her to remain neutral, 
mother Avill be more easily managed.” 

He felt very uncomfortable as he 
thought of his mother’s proud, handsome 
features, and the look of haughty dis- 
pleasure with which she AA^ould regard 
him, and he hardly kneAV how he could 
answer the stinging reproaches Avhich, he 
felt sure, she would launch at him. With 
Julia he would be on more equal terms, 
and he resolved, accordingly, to proceed 
at once to her room, and have it out Avith 
her first. He was spared the trouble of 
seeking her, however, for Julia w'as 
standing on the front piazza when he 
rode up, and hastened down the steps to 
meet him. She looked pale and haggard, 
as though she had passed a weary night, 
and there were great holloAv circles about 


THE PRIDE OF THE MALVERNS HAS A FALL, 


159 


her eyes, that told their own tale of sleep- 
lessness and tears. Audley observed her 
altered aspect with anxiety and alarm. 

“ Why, Julia,” he cried, as he bent 
down to kiss her, oblivious for the mo- 
ment of his own private causes of solici- 
tude, “ what is the matter? You look as 
if you had been crying a week.” 

“Do I?” she answered, with an effort 
to appear unconcerned. “ I didn’t know 
that one night’s dissipation would tell on 
me so. It’s the daylight, I suppose, — 
sunshine is always so unbecoming, espe- 
cially the morning after a ball. Come, 
let us get out of it as quickly as possible ; 
I have something to tell you, and I can’t 
say it if you stand staring at me like 
that.” 

She led the way into the parlor, closed 
the door carefully, then advancing to the 
centre-table, placed her hand on a packet 
of papers that lay there freshly sealed and 
directed. 

“Audley,” she said, still keeping her 
hand on the papers, “ can you guess what 
I am going to tell you ?” 

“No more than you can guess what I 
am going to tell you, by and by ; but I 
hope it is nothing very bad,” said Aud- 
ley, looking with real solicitude into her 
pale and teaxL-stained face. 

“ You, at least, ought not to think 
so,” she replied, with a faint smile, 
“ since it is what you have often urged 
me to do ; — see there, can you guess 
now?” 

As she spoke she placed the packet in 
his hands and bade him read the address. 
It was to Major-General Maurice Fother- 
ingay Bagpipe, U.S.A. 

“ I couldn’t stand the thought of it any 
longer, Audley,” she continued, in a 
fiiinter voice, as though the very mention 
of him sickened her. “ I wrote a letter 
last night after I came from the ball, 
putting an end to that engagement, and 
sent it off with Mr. Bruen’s mail this 
morning ; that package contains his let- 
ters and the ring he gave me, — I wish you 
would make arrangements for sending it 
through by the next flag of truce when 
you go to South Ambury.” 

» “With the greatest pleasure,” said 
Audley, pocketing the package *, “ but 
what,” he added, with a laugh, “is to 
become of the diamonds you were talk- 
ing about last night?” 

“ Oh, you may make me a present of a 
set when you marry Claude : you’ll be 
rich enough for anything then.” 

“ Humph I” said Audley, shrugging 
his shoulders and turning away as though 


he did not relish the joke. In truth, his 
sister’s remark was not calculated to 
inspire very comfortable reflections just 
then ; and Audley felt no disposition to 
pursue the conversation in a jocular 
strain. 

“Julia,” he said, assuming an air of 
gravity, and paying no attention to her 
last remark, “ tell me seriously what this 
new freak of yours means ; have you 
made up with George?” 

It was some time before Julia spoke. 

“No, Audley,” she replied, in an 
altered voice. “ George and I will never 
make up again. W e have met once more, 
it is true, but only to quarrel worse than 
ever; and I hardly think it likely now 
that we shall ever even meet again. I 
have said that to him which no man can 
forgive, and he has insulted me beyond 
all hope of pardon.” 

“ Insulted you !” cried Audley, with an 
angry gesture. “By heaven I though he 
were ten times my friend, I’ll make 
him ” 

“No, no, no!” cried Julia, interrupt- 
ing him, and clinging to him in alarm, 
“ it was nothing of that sort, Audley ; 
indeed it was nothing that you ought to 
notice, — nothing but our same old quarrel 
over again, only more bitter than ever. 
We were both more angry, more out- 
rageous, than we have ever been before ; — 
oh, Audley ! you know what we both can 
be when the evil spirit gets possession of 
us ; and there passed things between us 
last night that can never be forgiven or 
forgotten. No, no, it is impossible that 
there should ever be a reconciliation be- 
tween George and me ; but I can’t bear 
the thought of old Bagpipe now.” 

Audley understood her and was silent. 
He had tasted enough of love’s sweetness 
to judge how intense its bitterness might 
be, and he read now in those hollow, 
sunken eyes of Julia’s, a tale of secret 
suffering too dire for human lips to un- 
fold. There are feelings that will not 
bear translation into words, griefs too 
sacred to be named, sympathies so fine 
and delicate that the tenderest language 
seems too coarse a medium for their ex- 
pression. Audley felt this, and made 
Julia no reply, but, putting his arm 
around her, drew her closer to him, and 
kissed her affectionately. Julia under- 
stood the act, and its mute tenderness 
overcame her. A word of pity would 
have been offensive, but this gentle ex- 
pression of it broke down the hard wall 
of her pride, and, laying her head on her 
brother’s breast, she gave way to a flood 


160 


A FAMILY SECRET. 


of passionate tears. Andley made no at- 
tempt to restrain her; he knew that tears 
were the surest relief of an overburdened 
heart, and Julia was only too little accus- 
tomed at any time to give her feelings 
relief in outward expression. Nor did 
she give way to them long even now, 
but, forcibly checking her tears, was the 
first to speak after that violent outburst. 

“ It is an unspeakable relief, Audley,” 
she said, drying her eyes, ‘‘ at least to be 
delivered from that odious marriage. I 
have been engaged to half a score of men 
since I quarreled with George, but some- 
how, when it came to the pinch, I never 
could bring myself to pass the Rubicon 
w'ith any of them, and 1 begin to believe 
I shall die an old maid after all. I had 
determined to stand up to this engage- 
ment for mamma’s sake. You know 
what she has always been used to, Aud- 
ley, and, though she never complains, 
the privations and humiliations of the 
last few years have gone very hard with 
her. As for me, it made very little dif- 
ference what sort of man I married, ex- 
cept that I really had not the face to 
impose myself on a good one ; but after 
last night I felt that they were all alike 
impossible, and I must free myself at 
any cost. I felt the more at liberty to 
take this step, since your marriage with 
Claude will enable you to provide for 
mamma, and there was no need that I 
should now consider anybody but myself. 
What a plight we should all be in, Aud- 
ley,” she added, with a touch of her old 
levity, “if you had not secured your 
heiress!” 

Audley’s feelings at that moment can 
better be imagined than described. AVith 
the headlong thoughtlessness that char- 
acterizes men of his stamp where the 
gratification of their own passions is con- 
cerned, he had never paused, like Julia, 
to ask whether there were need that he 
should consider anybody but himself, 
and he now reflected with deep concern 
that her sudden change of determination 
must seriously affect his own plans. He 
owed a duty to his mother and sister, and 
that duty must be discharged before he 
was at liberty to think of the gratifica- 
tion of his own wishes. He seemed to 
see a new barrier spring up between 
Ruth and himself, yet even now the 
thought of resigning her never occurred 
to his mind. The difiiculties that rose in 
his way seemed only to enhance her 
value, and render him the more ardent 
in his determination to possess her at 
last. He admitted with a secret sigh 


that years of dreary delay might inter- 
vene, but he swore to himself with a ter- 
rible oath that, come what would, Ruth 
should stilb one day be his. To do him 
justice, he was heartily rejoiced even 
now that his sister had thought better of 
the fatal step she had been about to take, 
for he would not have sacrificed a hair of 
her head to accomplish his own purposes. 
The disclosure he had to make was now 
become doubly embarrassing, but seemed 
more imperative than ever, so he resolved 
to speak out at once and be done with it. 
Leading' his sister to an arm-chair, and 
drawing another close beside it, he bade 
her sit down and listen to something he 
had to tell. 

“You have given me a surprise this* 
morning, Julia,” he began, twirling his 
moustache a little nervously, “ and now I 
have one for you.” 

“Not a surprise, Audley,” she an- 
swered, with a meaning smile ; “ I knew 
very well what Claude’s answer would be 
before you asked her.” 

“ D — n Claude I” muttered Audley, be- 
tween his teeth. 

“AYhat about Claude?” asked Julia, 
on whom the gentle expletive was lost. 

“ Nothing, except that I haven’t asked 
her anything, and don’t intend to, and 
don’t suppose she’d have me if I did,” 
exclaimed Audley, blurting it all out with 
an impetuosity that quite startled his 
sister. 

“Not spoken to Claude!” she cried; 
“ why, I thought you had positively de- 
termined to propose to her last night !” 

“ So I had determined to propose to her 
fortune, but it seems that neither you 
nor 1, Julia, are quite so bad as we have 
sometimes thought ourselves, for like you, 
my resolution failed me at the last minute. 
Honest affection, after all, got the better 
of my sordid rascality, and before I left 
the AVhite House last night I did what 
only a fellow most insanely in love would 
have done — proposed to Ruth, — and was 
accepted.” 

“To Ruth !” gasped Julia, stupefied. 

“Yes, to Ruth,” Audley repeated, his 
courage rising as he advanced into the 
thick of the fight. “ There is no use try- 
ing to cheat myself about it any longer, 
Julia; I have loved her like a madman 
ever since I first met her, and if she had 
all the felons in the State prison for an- 
cestors, and debts double my own for her 
dowry, I would still make her my wife, 
though the entire Malvern family issued 
an edict of excommunication against her. 
There now, it is out, and you see there is 


THE PRIDE OF THE MALVERNS HAS A FALL. 


161 


no use raising a storm about it ; the 
united tears and indignation of the whole 
race couldn’t raise a tempest big enough 
to shake my purpose.” 

To Audley’s infinite surprise, instead 
of the storm of feminine wrath for which 
he had prepared himself, Julia replied 
to this outburst only with a quiet little 
laugh. She was so overjoyed to find that 
she had been mistaken in supposing there 
was anything between Ruth and George, 
that for the moment she forgot every 
other consideration, and could not help 
feeling a secret satisfaction in what, under 
any other circumstances, she would prob- 
ably have regarded as the greatest mis- 
fortune that could befall the family. 
Audley did not understand what prompted 
the laugh, and it wounded him ; he was 
in solemn earnest himself, and did not 
feel in a mood to be trifled with. 

“Julia,” he said, peevishly, “I don’t 
see what you can find to laugh at.” 

“No,” said Julia, checking herself, 
“you are right; the matter is much too 
serious for laughter, only I could not help 
feeling a sort of insane triumph at dis- 
covering that I am not absolutely the 
most reckless and insensate being in the 
world ; and for you, of all men living, to 
crown the red cap of folly with its top- 
most feather !” 

The apology was a very equivocal one, 
and Audley looked as if he hardly knew 
whether to take offense at it or to laugh 
with Julia. His affairs had reached a 
pitch of desperation that seemed almost 
to burlesque the common ills of life, and 
their utter irredeemability and gone-to- 
the-doggedriess seemed to strike him at 
last with a sense of gloomy absurdity. 
He leaned back in his chair, ran his hand 
through the brown curling locks that 
clustered over his forehead, and answered, 
with a mocking smile, — 

“Well, yes, Julia, I must admit that, 
for people who have been brought up 
with such proper ideas on the subject, 
you and I have both made an awful mess 
of our matrimonial prospects.” 

“ That we should both have been struck 
with madness at the same instant I it’s 
dreadful !” said Julia, in a tone that Aud- 
ley, familiar as he was with her moods, 
hardly knew whether to take for jest or 
earnest. “ If I had only known this 
sooner, Audley, it might have brought 
me to my senses in time ; but my letter 
is mailed, and there is no undoing it now. 
Well, perhaps the loss is not an irretriev- 
able one after all,” she continued, with 
mock resignation. “ I’m a tolerably good- 

11 


looking woman still, though alarmingly 
close to the shady side of thirty, and, if 
it comes to the pinch, you know, one can 
pick up an old widower any time: they 
are always a drug on the market, and 
can generally be had cheap, those with 
the very best establishments often being 
knocked down at the first bid to second 
and third-rate belles.” 

“Why not try a bachelor next time?” 
said Audley, infected, despite himself, 
with her tone of fiippant levity. “ My 
friend the major would be no bad specu- 
lation, I assure you.” 

“ Major Maelstrom ? Out of the ques- 
tion ; didn’t you see how devoted he was 
to little Mary Dalton last night?” 

“ Mary Dalton ! thunder!” 

“Of course you didn’t; you had eyes 
for nobody but Ruth Harfleur. Well,, 
he just followed her everywhere ; and 
then Ma Norgood has got him under sur- 
veillance^ too. She takes him in tow 
whenever Mary is out of the way ; and I 
overheard her tell him that I was a re- 
markably well-preserved woman for my 
age ; that there were very few women of 
thirty who carried their years so well: so 
you see she has put an extinguisher on my^ 
hopes in that quarter. I’m a very auda- ) 
cious woman, Audley, but I know better 
than to enter the lists against a widow,.. 
though she were old enough to be my 
grandmother, and wore a wig and ate 
onions besides ; think, then, when she is 
young and pretty, and has a mother to- 
tell the ages of her rivals !” 

“ And he has seen the kin-in-law, too.”^ 
cried Audley, pursuing his own refiec- 
tions aloud. “ Well, he goes into it with 
his eyes open, so no matter for him. I 
hope he’ll make a diversion in Miv 
Br lien’s favor, at any rate.” 

“ Yes, and in mine, too,” said Julia, 
laughing, “ as you seemed determined 
to set me on him whether or no. But I 
haven’t come to my last ditch yet, Aud- 
ley. There’s Mr. Harfleur now ; wouldn’t 
it be odd if that fortune should come 
into the family through me, after all?” 

“Julia,” cried Audley, seizing her by 
the arm, “ what do you mean?” 

“ Merely that, his attentions to me last 
night were of such a nature as to give 
me to understand that I might become 
mistress of the White House whenever 
I chose. So you see my case is not ab- 
solutely desperate, though General Bag- 
pipe is lost.” 

“ Julia 1 Julia I” said her brother, 
sternly, “this not a fit subject for jest- 
ing. Old Bagpipe was bad enough. 


162 


A FAMILY SECRET. 


heaven knows, but nothing to compare 
to the dark, cruel, dangerous man you 
have just named. I believe Mr. Ilarfleur 
would scruple at no hidden crime to 
further his own ends. I know him to be 
capable of plotting murder,” he added, 
as certain passages of Ruth’s early his- 
tory and more recent transactions in re- 
gard to the mysterious wanderer Roby 
flashed across his mind. 

“Murder?” whispered Julia, with a 
shudder. “You surely don’t mean ” 

“ That he has actually killed anybody ? 
No, not yet, to my knowledge, but he is 
capable of it, and has, as I believe, his 
heart full of murder at this moment. 
Rather than see you place yourself in 
that man’s power for a single instant I 
would lay you in your grave without a 
tear, and unless you wish to incur my 
everlasting displeasure, Julia, you will 
immediately cause the attentions to which 
you alluded to cease, and never mention ' 
that man’s name again, however lightly, 
in the same connection in which you 
spoke of him just now.” 

“ I hope you don’t think, Audley,” 
said Julia, becoming serious once more, 
“ that I ever really encouraged Mr. Har- 
fleur’s attentions. I have always felt a 
secret distrust of him myself, I can hardly 
tell why, and I never knew his eye fixed 
upon me without feeling a cold shiver 
run down my back, such as they say you 
feel when some heedless footstep falls on 
the spot where your grave will one day be 
made. Handsome and elegant as the 
man is, Audley, his attentions are even 
more repugnant to me than were old 
Bagpipe’s. I’d as soon think of flirting 
with Mephistopheles or King Pluto. So 
make your mind easy on that score. 
Indeed, I shall never marry anybody 
now, unless you can give me chloroform, 
and have it over without my knowledge, 
like any other disagreeable operation ; 
but I can never deliberately make up 
my mind to it.” 

“ You shall not marry anybody against 
our will,” said Audley, stroking her 
air tenderly. “Julia, we have both 
of us this day shaken off fetters of our 
own imposing, and I do not think either 
of us will again shackle ourselves with 
the ball-and-chain of our own sordid am- 
bition. AYe have permitted ourselves to 
taste the sweets of true freedom once 
more, — freedom of heart and mind, — and 
we will not sell ourselves again into 
slavery, will we, Jule ?” 

“ No, freedom forever, vive la lihertSV' 
cried Julia, waving her handkerchief 


over her head. “AYe’ll turn Bohemian, 
and be a set of glorious vagabonds, with 
nothing to fear because we’ve nothing to 
lose. Ruth shall sing ballads in the 
street, while you pick the pockets of the 
listeners, and I’ll follow with the pap- 
pooses to do the cheating and swindling ; 
that’ll suit my genius. And we’ll go 
nus pieds, and eat brown bread and sleep 
in the fields, and — and what will mamma 
do?” she added, suddenly checking her- 
self, and regarding her brother with that 
puzzling expression, half tender, half 
mocking, that so faithfully expressed 
the strangely-mingled elements of her 
character. 

“What will mother say'' replied Aud- 
ley, “ is a much more pertinent question 
to me just now. I must break this news 
to her before I go, and I confess I feel 
deuced cowardly about it, unless you will 
come and stand by a fellow, Jule,” he 
added, coaxingly. “We have pulled each 
other through many a scrape, and I did 
take your part in that Tom Burney affair, 
remember, when all the family were 
against me, and would have married you 
to him out of hand.” 

Julia laughed a sly little laugh and 
shook her head. 

“ No, Audley,” she said ; “ I have just 
been through with a little tempest on my 
own account this morning, and don’t feel 
as if I could weather another so soon. 
Besides, my presence would do you no 
good just now 5 it would only add fury to 
the storm.” 

“AYhat!” cried Audley, “you don’t 
mean to say that mother really wanted 
you to consummate the iniquity of selling 
yourself to that old blockhead?” 

“No, not that exactly,” replied Julia; 
“ but whenever any of my numerous 
matrimonial projects miscarry, she im- 
proves the occasion by giving me a little 
lecture upon my conduct in general, and 
reminding me of the importance of 
making a suitable settlement in life as 
speedily as possible, since I have arrived 
at an age when delay is very hazardous. 
Now, a review of my conduct during the 
last few years is never a very pleasing 
subject 01 reflection to me, nor are those 
little hints about my age quite as agree- 
able as they might be if I were ten years 
younger ; and besides, occasions for these 
lectures have occurred so often of late 
that they are becoming decidedly monot- 
onous, and I am afraid I don’t always 
listen as patiently as I ought. I had just 
undergone a tremendous one when you 
came in, and I can tell you you could not 


THE PRIDE OF THE MALVERNS HAS A FALL. 


163 


have hit upon a more un propitious mo- 
ment for your disclosure.” 

AYitli this consolatory assurance she let 
him depart. Audley’s feelin_o;s were not 
very enviable as he made his way to 
his mother’s apartment. He knew her 
haughty, ambitious temper; he knew 
that every drop of the proud old Saxon 
blood in her veins would revolt against 
the contaminating stream he was about 
to mix with it; he knew that there was 
little hope of ever gaining her consent to 
the step he had determined to take ; and 
what man, not utterly craven, does not 
tremble at the thought of defying his 
mother ? 

Mrs. Malvern was sitting alone in her 
room when he entered, looking very hand- 
some, very stately, and not a little ap- 
palling, when Audley considered the 
nature of his errand. She always showed 
when she was provoked or annoyed by 
an unusual stiffness and stateliness of 
bearing, and Audley detected at once, by 
the unnatural flush on her cheeks and by 
a certain rigidity in her attitude as she sat 
gazing into the Are, that she had not yet 
got over the effects of her little tift with 
Julia. He pretended, however, not to 
notice these signs of disturbance, and 
commenced at once to pave the way for 
his disclosure. 

“ Well, mother,” he began, kissing her 
and drawing a chair to her side, “ I have 
come to say good-b’ye, and to tell you 
something before I go that I wish very 
much may not be displeasing to you.” 

Mrs. Malvern looked at him and smiled ; 
she had her own conjectures as to the se- 
cret that was coming. 

“ I suppose, mother,” he continued, not 
quite knowing how to get out what he 
had to say and beating about the bush to 
gain time, ‘‘ that you have no objection to 
my getting married some of these days ?” 

“ On the contrary, my son,” replied 
Ml’S. Malvern, there is nothing that I 
desire more than to see both you and your 
sister well settled in life. It is true, you 
can better afford to wait than Julia, be- 
cause a man’s opportunities do not dimin- 
ish in the same proportion as he grows 
older ; still, I think you have put it off 
quite long enough, and the sooner you 
settle yourself now the better.” 

“Unfortunately, I am afraid I cannot 
comply with the latter part of your in- 
junction,” said Audley, “as it is likely 
to be a good many years before I am able 
to take care of a wife. I once thought of 
trying to get one that was able to take 
care of me, but that is out of the question 


now, so I must wait and work like any 
honest fellow.” 

“But surely, my son,” replied Mrs. 
Malvern, beginning to look alarmed, 
“ Claude Ilarfleur’s fortune is amply suf- 
ficient to preclude the necessity of delay 
on that account.” 

“ Yes ; but I have nothing to do with 
Claude Harfleur’s fortune,” said Audley, 
warmly, “ nor with any fortune at all, 
for the girl I have chosen has not a dollar 
in the world. I am the accepted lover 
of Ruth — the poor girl has not even a 
name.” 

Mrs. Malvern rose from her chair and 
planted herself in front of Audley with 
the air of Queen Elizabeth denouncing a 
fallen favorite. To do her justice, every 
mercenary thought had forsaken her 
then, and as she declaimed to Audley 
against his love Ruth’s want of fortune 
came not once into her mind. 

“My son,” she said, fixing her haughty 
glance upon him, “have you forgotten 
what is due to the honor of the name you 
bear, what you owe to the memory of 
your ancestors and to the hopes of your 
posterity, so far as to commit the public 
scandal of an open union with this un- 
happy child of felony and shame?” 

“ And why not an open union ?” cried 
Audley, firing up. “ If you mean to 
suggest any other sort as more compati- 
ble with the honor and dignity of the 
Malvern family ” 

“ Audley ! Audley !” interrupted his 
mother, shocked, to do her justice, at this 
interpretation of her words, “ far be such 
a thought from me. 'It was the sugges- 
tion rather of your own evil fancy, and 
your present infatuation is due to nothing 
but that spirit of an unbridled self-in- 
dulgence which you have pampered so 
long. You never would accustom your- 
self to practice the least self-denial, and 
now, because you happen to have set 
your heart on a girl whom no man in his 
senses ought to dream of, rather than 
forego the gratification of a senseless pas- 
sion you must make her your wife, 
though you know that in doing so you 
blast your own prospects forever, and 
bring shame and dishonor on one of the 
proudest names in America. AY as ever 
such madness since the world began?” 

Audley rose impatiently from his chair, 
and, resting one arm on the mantel-piece, 
stood for some time in silence gazing ab- 
sently into the fire. He was angry, and 
cut too, by his mother’s words, for harsh 
as they were he could not deny that there 
was some truth in them. Had he thought 


164 


A FAMILY SLiCRET. 


of anything in this whole affair beyond 
his own selfish gratification ? Had he 
not wronged even Ruth in asking her to 
link her fortunes with those of a homeless 
vagabond, whose love, perchance, after all, 
might not be worth the sacrifice ? And 
yet his mother had been unjust too, for 
he felt that his love for Ruth was not a 
mere selfish passion : it was something 
higher and holier than he had ever 
dreamed of before. lie was a man, too, 
whom opposition was very apt to 
strengthen in his determination, and Mrs. 
Malvern had certainly not gained any- 
thing by rousing his temper. 

“Mother,'’ he said, at last, choking 
down his anger wdth a great effort, “ you 
wrong me and deceive yourself in sup- 
posing that this is a mere fleeting fancy 
like so many others I have known. I 
have fought against it too long, and 
struggled too hard, not to know better. I 
am ngt blind to the disadvantages of such 
a marriage, nor am I indifferent to the 
unfortunate circumstances connected with 
Ruth’s birth. I have thought of these 
things, and regret them deeply, more 
deeply even than you, perhaps, and have 
struggled against them in my heart. Oh, 
mother, you will n^ver know how I have 
struggled against diis love I But it was 
too strong for me, and conquered pride, 
ambition, interest, all the host of selfish 
passions arrayed against it, and even my 
love for you cannot move me now. Ask 
anything else of me, mother, but do not 
ask me to give up Ruth, for that I cannot, 
cannot do even for you.” 

“ And her father, even if she had a 
right to claim one, was a convicted 
felon,” groaned Mrs. Malvern, fairly 
wringing her hands in desperation. “A 
wretch that actually died on the gallows ! 
Oh, my God ! a halter and abend sinister 
on the ’scutcheon of the Malverns ! 
....w^ey, are you mad?” 

“ I am madly in love, mother, which is 
the same thing, the^jj^say,” he replied, 
coldly. “ But to ease your mind in re- 
gard to that new device on the ’scutcheon 
of the Malverns, I may as well tell you 
that I begin to entertain serious doubts 
about our right to the halter, as I have 
some reason to fear that my future 
father-in-law hhs not yet met his deserts 
in that way. However the case may be, 
mother, I must entreat you to resign 
yourself, if you value my happiness, to 
the wife I have chosen. I am resolved 
to marry Ruth at all hazards, and neither 
entreaty nor remonstrance can move me 
now. I owe you much more than I can 


ever repay, but I owe something, also, 
to the woman who has given me her 
whole heart. It is little I can offer her 
in return, but I can, at least, be true to 
her, and that I will be to my last breath.” 

“ Oh, Audley ! Audley !” cried his 
mother, trying a last appeal, “ is it not 
enough for you that misfortune has over- 
whelmed our house, but you must bring 
upon it shame and dishonor too ? Is it 
nothing to you that the blood of the 
Audleys and Malverns, whose name you 
bear, has flowed pure and untainted for 
generations, that you should pollute it 
now with this foul stream of infamy 
and ” 

“ Mother! mother!” cried Audley, white 
with suppressed anger, “you forget that 
you are talking about my wife, — yes, my 
wife, for I’ll marry her though the last 
one of my race disown me for it I If my 
family cannot receive my wife, then they 
must learn that — but, mother, why are 
we talking thus ? You will not force me 
to choose between my wife and my 
mother, will you? You love me still, 
mother ? Say so, and learn to love Ruth 
a little for my sake, and be kind to her 
when I am gone. She is very friendless, 
poor girl 1 and a little kindness shown her 
now will be of more worth to me than all 
the affection you have lavished upon me 
in the past. But I see that my prayer is 
not to be granted,” he added, while an 
expression of pain and disappointment 
passed over his handsome features. 
“That is hard in you, mother; but at 
least let us not part in anger now. Kiss 
me once before 1 go ; we may both regret 
it some day if you don’t.” 

She submitted coldly to the kiss he 
printed on her lips, and then suffered 
him to depart without a word. Alas, 
proud w^oman ! she little dreamed with 
what bitter remorse she would one day 
look back upon that cold parting. 


CHAPTER XXXYI. 

THE MAJOR PUT TO ROUT. 

One more person remained to be in- 
formed of the event which had so dis- 
turbed Mrs. Malvern’s peace of mind. 
Mr. Bruen, as head of the family, and 
Ruth’s nearest relation, if she could be 
regarded as having family or kindred at 


THE MAJOR PUT TO ROUT 


165 


all, might naturally he considered as 
entitled to confidence in the matter, and 
though Audley felt that Ruth owed her 
family little or nothing on her own 
account, yet he judged that it would 
place her connection with him in a more 
honorable light to obtain for it Mr. 
Bruen*s sanction. He believed that the 
old gentleman had always meant to deal 
fairly by his niece’s unfortunate child, 
however he may have been misled as to 
the proper means of securing her welfare, 
lie had never, Audley felt sure, been a 
party to those insidious plots that had 
exposed her childhood to so many dan- 
gers, but was the dupe of Julian llar- 
fleur from beginning to end. Besides, 
something was due from Audley to the 
friendship shown himself and his family, 
so he determined at least to go through 
with the form of asking Mr. Bruen’s 
consent to his engagement with Ruth. 
He felt, however, as he closed his mother’s 
door behind him, that he had had quite 
enough of the matter for one day, and 
resolved, therefore, to make his commu- 
nication to Mr. Bruen in writing, which 
he did in a letter that reached Sandowne 
a few days after his departure. 

The old gentleman received the intel- 
ligence with a great burst of surprise, 
and hastened to consult with his wife, as 
he did on all momentous occasions. Satis- 
factory as the arrangement might have 
proved to him personally, he well knew 
with what antipathy Mrs. Malvern would 
regard such a match, and he had some 
honorable scruples about allowing the 
son of a friend to be taken in such a snare 
under his roof. 

But Mrs. Bruen, like most benevolent 
old ladies, was too inveterate a match- 
maker willingly to permit a marriage to 
be broken up on any account. Getting 
married was an act sufficiently meritorious 
per 56 , in her eyes, not to deserve every 
encouragement. She had a natural sym- 
pathy for all sorts of love-affairs, and easily 
persuaded her husband that, while it 
would tend to hush up scandal, and pre- 
serve the credit of the family that Ruth 
should be legitimately entitled to the pro- 
tection of an honorable name, he had it 
in his power to equalize matters some- 
what with the Malverns by rendering the 
marriage an advantageous one in a pecu- 
niary point of view. 

“ Why, God bless my soul, Margaret !” 
cried Mr. Bruen, catching eagerly at the 
idea, ^‘that’s just what I was thinking 
about. George has been after me ever 
since the child came home to make some 


provision for her support, and d — n me — 
I beg your pardon — if now ain’t the time 
to do it. That young fellow deserves 
something, too, for his generosity and 
disinterestedness. You see by his letter 
he knows all about that cursed affair of 
Nettie’s, and yet he loves the child enough 
to marry her in spite of it all. He’s a 
d — d fool for doing it, — may the Lord for- 
give me for saying so ! — but I can’t help 
liking him the better for his noble dis- 
interestedness. And I thought the rascal 
was after Claude all the time, and was 
trying to take the trumps out of George’s 
hand, — ha I ha! ha!” laughed the old 
gentleman, in high glee that his favorite 
project was in no danger from that quar- 
ter. ‘‘ But it’s not odd,” he continued, 

that a 3^oung fellow should fall in love 
with Ruth ; no, by gad, — and he stai;ids 
up to his girl like a man, and he sha’n’t 
repent of it. I’ve got enough, as George 
says, to provide for Ruth without hurting 
him ; and as sure as I never mean to 
swear another oath, she sha’n’t go to him 
empty handed, — d — n me if she shall !” 

But these benevolent designs of the old 
folks were all unknown to Audley, whose 
future prospects must have loomed rather 
drearily before him, ift spite of the gla- 
mour that love had cast over his eyes in 
those silent self-communings that he found 
such ample leisure for during the tedious 
days and nights that succeeded his de- 
parture from South Ambury. The pros- 
pect about him was not calculated to 
inspire cheerful reflections, and the scene 
became less inviting every day, as the 
little army approached the real “ pine 
barrens,” — that desolate borderland which 
lies between the fertile rice-fields on the 
coast and the wealthy cotton-lands of the 
interior, — a dreary waste of sand and 
pines, where the gopher plows his sterile 
furrow, and the rude native rears his 
solitary hut, and trusts his starveling ex- 
istence to the cold charity of a hard and 
niggard nature. 

It was now near the end of February, 
when the air was filled with a soft blue 
haze from the burning fields and forests, 
where the planters had lighted fires to get 
rid of the fallen timber and the old growth 
of sedge and wire-grass that cumbered the 
ground ; and, at evening, the sight of an 
old field on fire, with every giant pine 
wrapped in flames to its topmost boughs 
presented a spectacle grand and awful, 
like a fleet on fire. Sometimes the flames 
would get the upper hand of man, and 
then the major would bring his little band 
to aid the distressed planters in rescuing 


166 


A FAMILY SECRET, 


their fences and corn-cribs from the de- 
vouring element. The major was a man 
of convivial temper, and could never resist 
the temptation to stop, after one of these 
little feats, and partake with his officers 
of the planter’s hospitality, — that is, of 
his brandy-toddy-and mint-julep, — a prac- 
tice which did not tend by any means to 
the promotion of discipline and good order 
in his command. After they entered the 
“ barrens,” where the miserable hut of the 
“cracker” offered no such temptations, 
the major’s fondness for the chase still 
remained a stumbling-block in the way 
of military success. If a rabbit ran across 
the road, half his men would break the 
ranks to give chase; while a wild turkey, 
a stray stag, or even a ’possum, would 
break up the whole army, and set them 
flying on his trail, with the major at their 
head. 

In truth, it would be hard to conceive 
of a more unsoldierly rabble than the 
rude gang to which Audley, with infinite 
disgust, now found himself attached. 
The ill-starred Confederacy was fast tot- 
tering to its fall, and the country had been 
so drained of men to prolong the death- 
struggle of its two great armies, that to 
raise forces now was like draining the 
last drop of blood from the heart of a 
dying man. The most rigid exactions 
had not been able to muster at South 
Ambury more than three meagre battal- 
ions, consisting of the last gleanings of 
the conscription — unfledged boys scarcely 
out of their trundle-beds, and old men 
scarce out of their graves, — one-half un- 
able, and all unwilling to serve. 

Out of this unpromising material our 
old friend Major Maelstrom, who had 
been invested with the chief command, 
was directed to organize a band and lead 
it against the deserters ; but partly owing 
to the fact that there were about thr^ 
officers to every man under his com- 
mand, — a notable feature of the South- 
ern army at that time, — and partly be- 
cause the major himself knew no more 
about military tactics than a well-trained 
cavalry horse, his band never did get or- 
ganized, but went straggling along like 
a gang of gipsies, and so signalized them- 
selves by their exploits against the feath- 
ered tribe, both wild and domestic, that 
they ac(fuired the honorable name of 
“ Milestone’s Chicken Cavalry,” — the ma- 
jor’s awful patronymic being degraded 
by the country people into that more 
familiar appellative. For mere personal 
courage the major w\as as brave a man as 
you would find any day, and if whipping 


the enemy had merely meant singling out 
the biggest fellows you could find and 
frailing them out with a big hickory like 
so many runaway “niggers,” he w'ould 
have been equal to the conquest of the 
world ; but unfortunately, where thorough 
discipline and scientific drilling were re- 
quired, the major was about as unfit to 
command as his men were to serve. He 
was by birth a wealthy planter, who had 
rarely left his home, except to go maroon- 
ing or to consult with his factor in South 
Ambury, until, moved by an unlucky in- 
spiration of patriotism, he had volunteered 
to serve his country in a military capacity. 
He was placed in the Quartermaster’s De- 
partment at South Ambury,' Avhere he 
gradually rose to be commandant of the 
post, and finally general-in-chief of the 
“Chicken Cavalry.” 

To a man of thorough military training 
like Malvern, all this was exasperating in 
no small degree. He had made strenu- 
ous efforts to organize the major’s motley 
crew into something like a regular mili- 
tary force, and might have succeeded in 
doing something with it if he had held 
supreme command ; but the terms of his 
parole not permitting him to assume at 
present the duties of any but a very 
subordinate position, he was constantly 
thwarted by the ignorance of his com- 
mander and the inefficiency of the subal- 
terns in this make-shift of an army. His 
company consisting of three men and a 
half, — one was such a small boy they didn't 
count him, — two corporals, six sergeants, 
an ensign, and four lieutenants, did not 
give much scope for the exercise of dis- 
cipline ; and at last, disgusted with the 
wffiole concern, and convinced that the 
country was going to the devil any way 
as fast as it could, he gave up the hope- 
less attempt to mend matters, and shot 
his ducks and tracked his turkeys with 
the rest of them ; d la guerre comme d la 
guerre. He consoled himself by reflect- 
ing that for the wdld, irregular warfare 
they were to be engaged in these undis- 
ciplined troops might, after all, serve as 
well as any others, — at any rate, they 
could not be more wild and untrained 
than the lawless vagabonds they were to 
fight against. 

The expedition did not proceed at once 
to meet the enemy, but went first to join 
the remains of Canning’s band, that had 
retired to a little town on the borders of 
Florida, which had been made a depot of 
supplies, and had become the military 
headquarters of the district. Here they 
found about two hundred men, but could 


THE MAJOR PUT TO ROUT 


167 


augment their forces by only half that 
number, since it was necessary to guard 
with considerable vigilance the quarter 
where the captured outlaw women and 
children were confined. The only method 
of dealing with the bandits was to de- 
stroy their huts' and place their families 
under Government surveillance^ for it was 
through the women and children that the 
gangs lurking in the swamps were pro- 
vided with food and such rude munitions 
of war as they required. It was out of 
the question to make war directly against 
the men, for upon the approach of any 
regular force they immediately dispersed 
and concealed themselves in the swamps, 
where they were supplied by their Avomen 
with provisions, or harbored by them in 
their huts at night. It was long before 
the War Department could bidng itself to 
authorize a course that seemed so bar- 
barous as dragging women from their 
homes and burning their houses before 
their eyes, but at last the depredations 
of the outlaws became so serious, and 
their women were such active auxiliaries, 
that it was a mere piece of political 
prudery to mince matters any longer, and 
so the order was given to burn every hut 
where arms or ammunition were found 
concealed, and keep the inmates under 
restraint until the country became tran- 
quil. Still, the men charged with the 
execution of the order hesitated, and the 
outlaws, emboldened by impunity, grew 
more audacious every day. Several valu- 
able salt-works on the coast were de- 
stroyed by them, wagon-trains bound for 
South Ambury and other depots of sup- 
plies were attacked and plundered, the 
residences of planters along the border 
were pillaged, and their families driven 
off, and finally a band of Government 
forces was routed and all but annihilated. 
A few of the outlaws, captured about 
that time and recognized as deserters 
from the Confederate army, were hanged 
as an example to the rest. The outlaws 
retaliated upon the next prisoners they 
took, and thus was inaugurated a system 
of butchery and murder too sickening 
for description. Previous to this time 
the laws against deserters had been exe- 
cuted with great laxity, the greater part 
of those captured being merely sent back 
to their respective commands ; but now, 
the exasperated soldiery began to exercise 
the utmost rigor, and a war of extermina- 
tion ensued. The black flag once un- 
furled, the fate of every man captured 
was, henceforth, inevitable death. Still, 
the deserters, hid away in their impreg- 


nable fastnesses, sallying forth now and 
then to attack some defenseless point, 
atid dispersing again as soon as an armed 
force went in search of them, defied the 
utmost efforts of the Government, and 
forced it to the harsh expedient of cutting 
off their supplies by destroying the huts 
where they harbored and taking their 
families into custody. 

But barbarous as such a measure may 
seem in theory, it was by no means the 
cruelty that a sentimentalist would make 
believe ; for the persons placed under 
surveillance were clothed and fed at the 
expense of the nation, and better provided 
for than they ever were in their lives 
before. They were placed in charge of 
an officer named Carroll, — an invalid who 
had lost a leg in one of the early battles 
of the war, — and were jocularly known 
among the soldiery as “ Carroll’s family.” 
If poor Carroll had been a hen-pecked 
Turk or Mormon he could not have been 
afilicted Avith a more unruly family, as 
our friend the major discovered Avhen he 
Avent Avith some of his officers on a tour 
of inspection. 

The camp or barracks where Carroll’s 
family Avere confined was a large quad- 
rangular space on the east side of the 
town, inclosed by rows of shanties, with 
a large shed in the centre, over a well of 
water, to protect the women when busy 
at their wash-tubs ; and the whole pre- 
sented an appearance not unlike the 
arrangements at a camp-meeting. There 
were some twenty-five or thirty families 
in durance vile at the time of the major’s 
visit, and a curious picture did they pre- 
sent to those Avho beheld this strange 
Bohemian community for the first time. 

It was a fine day, and all the world was 
out-of-doors. Tallow-faced, white-headed 
children, with none of the spirit of child- 
hood about them, Avere squatted about on 
the sand or lounging listlessly at the 
cabin doors. Groups of sallow-cheeked 
Avomen* ragged, dirty, and barefoot, with 
slouchy calico bonnets on their heads and 
the ineAdtable snuff-mop in their mouths, 
were dotted about in the sunshine, retail- 
ing the news of their little community or 
dandling in their arms little bundles of 
red flannel, Avhich on closer inspection 
proved to be babies. Under the central 
shed a large crowd had collected to wit- 
ness a fight that was going on between 
two amazons over a disputed wash-tub. 
The young women belabored each other 
royally *, and the sympathies of the crowd 
Avere so lively that the fray threatened to 
become general, when the entrance of the 


168 


A FAMILY SECRET. 


major with his escort restored peace for 
the time and caused all parties to unite 
their forces against the common enemy: 

It may well be imagined the officers of 
such an expedition as Major Maelstrom’s 
were anything but popular with the 
women of “ Carroll’s family’’ ; and after 
the first hush of surprise they began to 
give utterance to their feelings in a strain 
of invective that would have taken the 
breath out of poissardes themselves. Mal- 
vern’s dashing air and smart uniform — 
for he was a man very fastidious in his 
dress — seemed particularly to excite their 
indignation, and at him some of their 
choicest expletives were leveled. 

“ Yer nasty, stinkin’ hound’s puppy I 
what do yer come here to stare at us poor 
folks for with yer trimmin’s and yer 
brimmin’s?” said a stalwart matron, 
raising her head from the wash-tub over 
which she was bending, and disgorging a 
huge wad of snuff as she spoke. “Ain’t 
yer afeerd o’ spilin’ yer fine clo’es ’mong 
us poor trash?” 

“ Does yer mammy know yer’s out, 
yoiing mishy-mooney, with yer Sunday 
clo’es on?” chimed in a bare-footed dam- 
sel, planting herself with arms akimbo in 
front of his horse. 

Audley, unused to this style of address 
from the fiiir sex, and unable to retort in 
kind, where his assailants were females, 
bethought ►him of Dr. Johnson and the 
fishwomen, and amused himself by reply- 
ing in terms of the most exaggerated 
compliment. — 

“ 0 fairest of creation !” 

he began, ransacking his memory of the 
poets, 

“ last and best 

Of all God’s works ; creature in whom excels 

Whatever can to sight or thought be formed ; 

Holy, divine, good, amiable, or sweet; 

Why dost thou ask ” 

“ Hold yer consarned tongue, yer vile 
whelp o’ a hound I” broke in the fair 
amazon, shaking her ample fist in the 
air. “ Yer’d better take yer monkey’s 
riggin’s whar they’se wanted, an’ be 
dratted to yer !” 

“ 0 ! quam te memorem virgo? namque haud tibi 
vultus 

Mortalis, nec vox hominem sonat,” 

returned Audley, with a flourishing bow, 
falling back upon his classics. 

The women stared at each other stupe- 
fied. 

“ Shet yer tarnation mouth,” began the 


undaunted amazon ; but she was herself 
arrested by the first speaker pulling at 
her sleeve. 

“ Shet up, Sukey, shet up,” whispered 
the prudent matron, her elbows dripping 
with soap-suds ; “he can beat us all to 
pieces a cussin’.” 

Thus driven from their ground, they 
next turned their attention to the major, 
who sat on his horse choking with laugh- 
ter at Audley’ s adventure. A “ snaggle- 
toothed old dirt-dauber,” a “ catterblasted, 
pizen alligator,” a “consarned, bedratted, 
beslattered old collerwhopper,” were some 
of the mildest epithets bestowed upon 
him. The major, having no Latin at his 
command, stood it all in silence as long 
as he could, but aftel* awhile his patience 
gave way, and he began to curse and 
swear back at them, regardless of race, 
sex, or previous condition. This only 
made matters worse, for the louder he 
swore the shriller screeched the female 
chorus, until he seemed to have all Bed- 
lam at his heels, and at last in despera- 
tion he drew his sword and vowed that 
he’d cut the tongue out of the next one 
that opened her mouth. Upon this the 
women all stretched their mouths and 
darted out their snuff-coated tongues as 
if they were undergoing a medical exam- 
ination. The major, whose experience 
with women had been very limited, was 
beside himself. 

“ By Jove ! Carroll,” he cried, turning 
to the unfortunate head of this interest- 
ing family, “why don’t you take a hick- 
ory to some of these jades? You’ve got 
no more discipline here than if it was a 
hog-pen.” 

“ That’s so, major,” said Carroll, touch- 
ing his hat ; “ but I don’t see how it is to 
be helped, sir, for you know, sir, what- 
ever they may do, I cannot forget that 
they are women, and women in distress.” 

“Bight, Carroll, right,” said the ma- 
jor, forgetting his anger in an instant. 
“ You are a soldier and a gentleman, 
Carroll. Fire away, old woman,” he con- 
tinued, turning to a withered old witch 
who had been particularly violent in her 
abuse ; “ cuss as much as you please *, I 
don’t mind.” And, putting spurs to his 
horse, the major fled at full gallop out of 
the camp. 

“By Jove! Malvern,” he said, reining 
in his steed and wiping the sweat from 
his forehead, when they stood safe out- 
side the inclosure, “I would rather storm 
the trenches at Balaklava single-handed 
than go through with that again.” 


UNDER THE BLACK FLAG, 


169 


CHAPTER XXXVII. 

UNDER THE BLACK FLAG. 

Having found their friends, and rein- 
forced themselves with the remains of 
Canning’s shattered band, the next thing 
for the major’s men to do was to find the 
enemy they had come to fight against, — 
a task which proved the most difficult 
part of their undertaking. The troops 
now under the major’s command num- 
bered nearly eight hundred, and, with 
their superior equipments, would have 
been quite sufficient to deal with any 
force the enemy could muster, if they 
could only find an enemy to deal with. 
On the approach of anything like a 
regular force, the outlaws immediately 
dispersed and retreated to their hiding- 
places, skulking about in fens and mo- 
rasses utterly inaccessible to more un- 
wieldy bodies. It was in vain the major 
hurried, unimpeded by venison and wild 
ducks, which were pretty well extermi- 
nated in that region, to any district 
where he heard that depredations were 
being committed ; he arrived only to find 
the place plundered an^ deserted, and to 
hear of disorder and violence in some 
other quarter. Upon hastening to this 
new scene of action the enemy vanished 
before him, and, while he was scouring 
bog and brake in fruitless search, the 
slippery vagabonds would come to light 
in some other part of the country, — now 
emerging stealthily from their dens to 
commit petty thefts on hen-roosts and 
pig-sties, now sallying forth in armed 
bands to capture a wagon-train or plun- 
der a plantation of its stores. The wis- 
dom with which these little expeditions 
were planned, striking at the very point 
where the greatest damage could be done 
and the smallest risk incurred, the bold- 
ness with which they were executed, the 
skill with which the outlaws baffled their 
pursuers, and the something like disci- 
pline and concert of action that seemed 
to reign among them of late, all appeared 
to indicate that they were directed by a 
leader of no ordinary ability, and there 
was a rumor in the country that this 
leader was an escaped prisoner from 
Andersonville, who had joined the de- 
serters a short time before Canning’s 
defeat. AVhoever he was, he understood 
to perfection the Fabian art, for never 
since the days of Hannibal was any 
leader so put to it for want of an enemy 
to fight as our poor friend the major, 


wearing himself out in hopeless pursuit 
of an invisible foe. 

After wasting several weeks in unavail- 
ing marches and counter-marches, the 
major, by Audley’s advice, determined 
upon a change of tactics. Dividing his 
forces, he kept three hundred men under 
his own command stationed at some cen- 
tral point, ready to proceed at a moment’s 
notice to any quarter where their services 
might be needed, while the rest of the 
band was cut up into small detachments 
of twenty-five or fifty men each and sent 
to scour the country in every direction. 

By this means a large area could be 
invested at once, and the success of the 
plan soon became apparent in the great 
number of culprits overtaken and brought 
to justice, as well as in the rapid increase 
of “ Carroll’s family,” though the horrors 
of the conflict were, unfortunately, aug- 
mented in the same proportion, as the 
dark recesses of brake and jungle became 
the scene of many a desperate encounter 
where no quarter was given. 

These conflicts were not on a large 
scalb as to numbers, there being often 
only two or three, and seldom more than 
half a score, engaged on either side, but 
they were fought to extermination, and 
woe to the unhappy wretch that fell alive 
into the hands of his enemies I Infuri- 
ated at^the destruction of their homes, 
and burning to avenge the stern justice 
meted to their comrades, the bush- 
whackers,” as they were called, scrupled 
at no atrocity that revenge or hatred dic- 
tated. More than once the majors men, 
in riding through lonely places, had sud- 
denly come upon the blackened corpse of 
some missing comrade dangling over their 
heads, mingling its putrid odors with the 
fragrance of the jessamine and muscadine 
that hung, perchance, from the self-same 
bough, and had already begun to wind 
their young tendrils about its cold, stark 
Angers, still clinched as they had been in 
the dying agony. Or, perchance, it might 
be only a ghastly skeleton that met their 
view, with a few tattered shreds fluttering 
about its whitened bones, still propped 
against the tree to which it had been 
bound a living, breathing thing, warm 
with life and love, to await the fatal 
bullet that made it this homeless waif 
from the tomb. It was now near the 
middle of March, the joyous May-time of 
that warm, austral region ; but the breath 
of spring was polluted with odors of 
death, and the screaming of vultures 
resounded through the land where the 
voice of the turtle was wont to be heard. 


170 


A FAMILY SECRET, 


About this time Audley met with an 
adventure that made a deep impression 
on his mind. One evening as he was 
riding along attended b}^ a single corpo- 
ral, — an uncouth rustic, whose intimate 
knowledge of the country and undoubted 
fidelity rendered him very useful to the 
colonel, — he imprudently allowed him- 
self to become separated from the squad 
that he usually kept near his person. He 
halted a little before sunset on the brow 
of a gentle slope leading down to the 
% margin of a small creek, waiting for the 
rest of his party to come up and pitch 
camp there for the night. It was a favor- 
able spot for a bivouac, the slight eleva- 
tion of the ground giving them every 
advantage of position in case of an attack, 
and the reeds along the stream providing 
forage for their horses. As Audley stood 
quietly surveying the scene, he observed 
something white fluttering among the 
bushes that crowned the opposite slope, 
and the next minute a man emerged 
from the thicket bearing aloft a white 
rag stuck upon the point of a bayonet. 
He walked rapidly along till he reached 
the open space where the road led over 
the hill, then halted and commenced 
waving his rude banner violently, as if 
anxious to attract attention. 

Audley hesitated a moment. It was 
against all military precedent to parley 
with enemies who had forfeited bellig- 
erent rights ; yet in this irregular war- 
fare some irregular proceedings must be 
admitted, and his instincts of humanity 
made him shrink from replying to the 
peaceful overture with a bullet *, a course 
of action, moreover, which would not be 
altogether prudent just then, since the 
bushwhacker no doubt had friends within 
reach, and in case of an encounter would 
probably be backed by more men than 
Audley and his single attendant could 
withstand. In view of all these consid- 
erations, he thought that circumstances 
warranted a departure from the strict 
letter of his instructions, if for no other 
purpose than to gain time for his own men 
to come up ; so beckoning the corporal to 
him, he pinned a pocket-handkerchief to 
the point of his bayonet, and ordered him 
to flourish it aloft. The outlaw under- 
stood the signal, and advanced boldly 
down to the margin of the creek, where, 
after snapping his musket to show that it 
was unloaded, he leaned it against the 
trunk of a tree, then stood with his arms 
folded on his breast waiting for Malvern 
to come down on the* other side. Order- 
ing his corporal to keep on the watch, 


and be ready to do his part in case of 
foul play, Audley rode down to the 
water’s edge, and demanded of the out- 
law what he wanted. At the sound of 
his voice the man gave a start, and 
seemed to peer eagerly through the 
gathering twilight to get a good view of 
the young officer’s features. Audley, 
suspicious of the man’s scrutiny, and 
impatient of his silence, admonished him 
again, in no gentle terms, to make known 
his errand. 

“ Can’t you speak out, and say what 
you want?’^ he demanded, peremptorily. 
“ I am not in the habit of parleying with 
vagabonds like you, and I have no time 
to waste on you.” 

“ And yet, since you have condescended 
to receive me,” replied the tall bush- 
whacker, drawing himself up to his full 
height, ‘‘ I ought not to find it necessary 
to remind a soldier and a gentleman like 
Colonel Malvern that a flag of truce 
usually protects its bearer from insult as 
well as from injury.” 

To hear himself thus addressed by 
name was strange enough, but to be re- 
buked on a point of military etiquette by 
a rude brigand in the backwoods of 
Georgia was too much for the equanimity 
of the brilliant West Pointer, and he 
stood stupefied with astonishment. Such 
language from the mouth of an abandoned 
robber, — so dignified, so courteous, even 
in rebuke, and, above all, spoken with 
that cultivated, patrician accent which 
marks a man even more than his words, 
was enough to strike the hearer dumb. 
It was too dark down there in the hollow 
to get a distinct view of the stranger’s 
features, separated as the two interlocu- 
tors were by the creek flowing between 
them, but Audley could see that he was 
a man considerably advanced in years, 
and of rather imposing appearance, not- 
withstanding the poverty of his attire, 
which consisted of a red flannel shirt, a 
pair of white homespun trousers, cavalry 
boots, with holes in the toes, and an old 
slouched hat, that entirely shaded his 
features. There was something in his 
bearing that seemed to command respect, 
and the young man felt half ashamed of 
himself for having merited a rebuke, the 
justice of which he frankly acknowledged. 

“You are right, -stranger,” he said, 
urging his horse a step or two forward, 
till its forefeet stood in the water, “since 
I have consented to speak with you ; but 
the interview must be brief. You are 
probably aware, since you are so well 
posted in the military code, that I could 


UNDER THE BLACK FLAG. 


171 


be court-martialed for treating with you 
at all.” 

The outlaw bowed. 

My business is quickly told,” he 
said. I come to beg leave to surrender 
myself into your hands.” 

“ Surrender !” cried Audley. “ You 
know the conditions?” 

“ I had hoped they might be modified 
in my case, as ” 

“ The inevitable doom of deserters, by 
the military code of all nations, is death,” 
said Audley, interrupting him. 

“ But, colonel,” replied the man, “ you 
cannot call me a deserter, since I never 
was in the army.” 

“ That is just the trouble with fellows 
like you,” said Audley, sharply, “ that 
you can’t be made to go where we want 
to put you — in the army. Every man 
that sliirks his duty in times like these is 
a deserter and a traitor.” 

“ I have shirked no duty, colonel,” 
said the man, proudly, “ for your coun- 
try has no claim upon me. I am a for- 
eigner by birth, and my present position 
is not of my own seeking, but has been 
forced upon me by circumstances that 
might w’ell have driven a man to worse 
things. But, alien as I am, I would not 
willingly raise a finger against your 
country, and I promise, colonel, if you 
will receive me, to make as zealous and 
trusty a soldier as any that are serving 
under your banners. I have only one 
condition to ask, — that I may not be re- 
quired to serve against these poor devils 
who have been my comrades. They 
have befriended me when I was in great 
straits, and on no account could I ever 
consent to betray them or do them an 
injury. They know that my association 
with them is but temporary, therefore 
there is no treachery in the proposal I 
make you. But I couldn’t fight against 
them, colonel-, you understand me?” 

“ Perfectly,” said Audley, admiring 
the fellow’s rude loyalty ; “ but I have no 
authority to treat with you. If you sur- 
render, it must be to throw yourself 
solely upon the clemency of the Govern- 
ment. I can only promise you my re- 
commendation to mercy, and I think it 
but fair to warn you at the same time 
that the laws of the land have been fear- 
fully outraged, and those in authority 
are disposed to proceed with the utmost 
rigor.” 

“ But, colonel,” persisted the man, 
“ your country needs men to fight for 
her, and is perishing for want of them. 
I offer you not one stout soldier merely,” 


stretching forth his right arm to show 
how strong and muscular it was, but 
twenty. There are nineteen sturdy fel- 
lows waiting in the swamp yonder, who 
are tired of this vagabond life, and would 
gladly exchange it for that of regular 
soldiers, — nineteen sound, strapping, 
trusty fellows. Yes, trusty as steel -, I’ll 
answer for their faith.” 

“And who will answer for yours?” 
said Audley, with quiet sarcasm. 

“ That must answer for itself,” re- 
plied the outlaw, haughtily. “ If you 
will ride to the opposite hill- top yonder, 
I will show you my nineteen men so that 
you can count them on your fingers. 
Come with me, colonel, if only to con- 
vince yourself that I am acting in good 
faith. I place myself as a hostage in 
your hands. You can keep your pistol 
clapped to my head as I walk along by 
your side.” 

Audley hardly knew what to think 
of this strange proposal. If it was to 
entrap him into a snare, he would gain 
nothing by betraying his suspicions, 
since twenty men could dispose of him 
and his one follower as they pleased 
without any ceremony. If, on the other 
hand, the bushwhacker was sincere, he 
had no power to make terms with him, 
as he had that very morning received 
fresh dispatches from headquarters com- 
manding him to proceed with the utmost 
rigor against offenders, and to spare ab- 
solutely none, except those who chose to 
purchase life by betraying their leaders. 
He concluded, however, that it was best 
to go with the stranger, as that would at 
least gain time in case foul play was in- 
tended, during which his own men might 
come up. Accordingly, with an air of 
perfect sang-froid^ he ordered the moss- 
trooper to take up his musket and lead 
the way. “ I can dispense with the 
pleasure of clapping a pistol to your 
head,” he added, carelessly, “ though 
you must excuse me, my honest friend, 
if I take the precaution to carry one in 
my hand.” 

He cocked his revolver as he spoke, and, 
giving the reins a little twitch, allowed 
his horse to cross the creek, and follow 
the bushwhacker slowly up the ascent on 
the other side. 

“Now, colonel,” said the latter, when 
they halted at the top, “ keep your eyes 
fixed on that sand-hill yonder,” pointing 
to a low, sandy ridge in front of them, 
that formed a sort of water-shed between 
two great cypress-swamps, “ and count 
your men as they pass.” 


172 


A FAMILY SECRET. 


lie put his hands to his mouth, so as 
to form a sort of trumpet, and gave a loud, 
long whistle that waked the forest echoes 
far around. A few moments after, a tall 
brigand emerged cautiously from the 
thicket, then another, and another, in 
succession, till the whole nineteen had 
filed over the brow of the ridge and dis- 
appeared in the opposite brake. Slowly 
and silently they wended their way, their 
uncouth figures dimly defined against the 
evening sky, like ghosts of some slaugh- 
tered army come back, in the gloaming, 
to trace their death-march over again. 
When the last one had disappeared, the 
bushwhacker turned to Audley, and 
said, — 

“ There go nineteen men as brave and 
true as ever shouldered a musket, if you 
choose, colonel, to turn their courage to 
account.’’ 

“ I have no choice in the matter,” said 
Audley. “ My orders are decisive and 
explicit, unless you choose to wait until 
I can communicate with my superiors.” 

^‘Wait!” echoed the man, in a disap- 
pointed tone. “ What I require must be 
done quickly, or it will be forever too 
late. Colonel Malvern,” he added, in an 
altered voice, drawing nearer and laying 
his hand on the horse’s mane, if I could 

make you believe me ” He paused and 

looked wistfully into Malvern’s face, as 
though there were something he was long- 
ing to say ; then, suddenly changing his 
mind, he turned away without finishing 
the sentence, and disappeared in the 
thicket. His look sent a strange thrill 
through Audley’ s frame : had he really 
seen that face before, or were the uncer- 
tain shadows of evening only playing 
with his fancy? 


CHAPTER XXXYIII. 

SHOOTING A MAN IN THE BACK. 

The next day as Audley, attended by 
the corporal, was riding along the out- 
skirts of a great swampy wilderness, mak- 
ing some necessary observations on the 
nature of the country he was about to in- 
vest, the corporal suddenly laid his hand 
on the colonel’s rein and, checking his 
steed, directed his attention by a silent 
gesture to an object looming through the 
brush-wood, only a few hundred paces in 
front of them. It was the body of a tall 


bushwhacker, standing just on the edge 
of the brake, in an attitude of intense 
expectancy ,'with his hand on the lock of 
his musket, his lank, crane-like neck 
stretched to its utmost, and his head bent 
eagerly forward, as though straining every 
nerve to catch a sight of something he 
was looking for down the road. His back 
was turned in the direction from which 
Audley was approaching, and his lower 
extremities were partially concealed in 
the tall marsh- grass, so that the most 
conspicuous thing about him was an ex- 
panse of angular shoulder-blade, marked 
with a great X where his suspenders 
crossed over the back of his tattered shirt, 
drawing the waistband of his breeches 
half-way up to the nape of his neck, and 
making his whole figure present very 
much the appearance of a pair of tongs. 
He was standing so as to command a clear 
view of the long causeway that skirted 
the swamp, while he was himself entirely 
concealed by the thicket, except from a 
certain point where the road, cutting 
through an angle of the brake, revealed 
his lurking-place for an instant to one 
approaching from the southern extremity 
of the causeway. It was on this spot that 
the corporal had checked his commander’s 
horse, when his practiced eye first caught 
sight of the enemy. Evidently, he had 
heard their approach, and was on the 
watch for them, but had mistaken the di- 
rection of the sound. This was fortunate, 
for had he perceived the cavalrymen, the 
bullet that sped one of them to eternity 
would have been their first warning of 
his presence. At any instant he might 
turn his head, and then life would be 
the prize of the readiest rifle and the 
steadiest aim. There was no choice now 
but to shoot or be shot, since the slightest 
movement on their part must inevitably 
attrack the bushwhacker’s attention, and 
he had full sweep of the road in every 
direction. The corporal took in the situ- 
ation at a glance, and was ready for it. 

“ Now, colonel,” he whispered, level- 
ing his musket, “ here goes for a plumper. 
I’ll send that ’ere rogue a bosom friend 
this time, or my name ain’t Jack Peevy.” 

“Fie, Jack!” returned Malvern, who 
felt a chilvalrous repugnance to taking 
an enemy so unawares 5 “ would you 
shoot a man in the back like a dog, and 
not even give him a chance to look out 
for himself?” 

^‘Ha, colonel! I’d like to know what 
your chances would be ef I Avas to Avait 
for him yonder to turn his head. Them 
sharp-shooters never misses their aim, they 


SHOOTING A MAN IN THE BACK. 


173 


don’t, and the star on a officer’s breast is 
the mark they likes the best.” 

Before Audley could reply, whizz 
went the corporal’s rifle, and the next 
instant the sharp-shooter lay on his face 
amon^ the bushes. The two men hast- 
ened to the spot where he had fallen, and 
found that the corporal’s bullet had done 
its work speedily and well. So swift 
had been the stroke that the victim was 
dead before the report of the gun that 
killed him had ceased to echo through the 
swamp, and the warmth of his touch still 
lingered on the musket that had dropped 
from his hand, when the hand itself was 
motionless forever. But men brutalized 
by war learn to look upon death un- 
moved. The corporal turned over the 
body of the fallen sharp-shooter with his 
foot, whistling gayly to himself as he did 
so an old love-ditty, "but his song suddenly 
ceased when the features of the dead 
man met his view. 

“ By jingo !” he cried, starting back 
and gazing at the corpse with a look of 
stupid surprise, “I’m cussed ef tain’t 
Minie Bill hisself; I knowed him afore 
he deserted, and there warn’t sich another 
shot in all the army. Bill Huckster was 
his name, but the boys called him Minie 
Bill, ’cause he could send a minie-ball so 
true. I tell you what, colonel, it’s good 
luck for you I took a pop at him afore he 
caught sight o’ your stars and bars. Ha! 
tain’t everybody could a’ took Minie Bill 
ofi* so slick 1” 

“ Poor devil 1 we took him off a little 
unfairly though,” said Malvern, with a 
touch of chivalrous compunction, which 
the coarser nature of his companion was 
incapable of sharing. “ It ain’t a gal- 
lant action, Jack, to shoot an enemy in 
the back like that.” 

“Yes, that part of it do sound bad,” 
said Jack, turning the corpse back upon 
its face with his bajonet; “but, by 
golly, colonel, that was a bully hit o’ 
mine ! I took my aim straight at the 
spot whar you see his gallowses crosses 
here in the middle of his back,” punch- 
ing with the point of his bayonet into the 
oozy hole where his bullet had passed 
through the dead man’s spine, “ and she 
went straight as your hand to your mouth 
with vittles. Minie Bill hisself couldn’t 
’a beat that shot.” 

He stooped as he spoke, with the air 
of a gratified connoisseur, to examine 
the evidences of his skill more closely, 
and escaped, in doing so, a bullet that 
came hissing through the brake, and, 
after grazing Audley’ s cheek, passed di- 


rectly over the corporal's head. The two 
men sprang instantly each behind a tree, 
as the only protection against this unseen 
foe. The corporal quickly reloaded his 
musket ; then, balancing his hat on the 
end of it, advanced it beyond the body 
of the tree just enough to look like the top 
of a human head protruding. It was 
instantly riddled by a bullet, and the 
corporal let it drop, as though the wearer 
had fallen. He then signed to Audley 
to do the same, and in another instant 
the colonel’s hat also was pierced by a 
ball. 

“ Now they’ll come to look for the 
corpses,” whispered the corporal, prac- 
ticed in this kind of warfare, “ and then 
we’ll have fun.” 

He had scarcely uttered the words 
when a head was advanced cautiously 
from behind the trunk of a huge cypress, 
from which the three shots had been dis- 
charged, then a pair of angular shoulders, 
and finally a long, lank figure emerged, 
and proceeded cautiously towards the spot 
where Audley was concealed. The cor- 
poral advanced one step from his lurking- 
place to make sure of his aim ; he had 
leveled his musket, his hand was on the 
trigger, when a bullet from another quar- 
ter whizzed through the air, and the 
corporal fell with a heavy thud upon the 
corpse of the sharp-shooter he had just 
slain, a speedy sacrifice to his manes. 

Enraged at the death of his follower, 
Audley rushed from his hiding-place, 
and, snatching up the dead bushwhack- 
er’s musket, leveled it at the ruffian ad- 
vancing through the thicket, and shot 
him dead in his tracks. Another bullet 
whistled past him at the ^ame instant, 
but it only grazed his shoulder and bur- 
ied itself harmlessly in the tree behind 
which he had been concealed. Audley 
could not see his foe, but the gleaming 
of a rifle in the thicket guided his uner- 
ring aim, and before the report of his 
gun had died awajr he knew, by the 
crashing and quivering of the canes, that 
a heavy body had fallen among them. 

Not knowing what enemies might be 
lurking around in the bushes, he stopped, 
before remounting, to examine his pistols. 
The precaution was well taken; for he 
had scarcely drawn the weapon from his 
belt when a wild yell rent the air, and 
a troop of nine desperadoes rushed from 
the thicket. They had heard the noise 
of the conflict from their lurking-places, 
and, guessing only too well its meaning, 
had hurried to the aid of their comrades. 
Most of them were armed with pikes: 


174 


A FAMILY SECRET. 


some had only clubs; but, even unarmed, 
their numbers would have made them 
more than a match for a single man. 
Audley saw that his situation was des- 
perate, and resolved to sell his life dear ; 
for to fall alive into the hands of the out- 
laws Avould be only to yield himself up 
to a death of ignominy and torture. The 
bushwhackers directed their bitterest ha- 
tred against the officers opposed to them, 
and any decoration that betokened mili- 
tary rank was sure to bring dire ven- 
geance upon the wearer. At sight of the 
three stars that glittered upon Audley’ s 
collar, the outlaws gave another yell, and 
rushed upon him like demons. It was a 
terrible moment, but Audley’s presence 
of mind never forsook him. 

Singling out the only two of the enemy 
that appeared to have fire-arms, he picked 
them off before they could level their cum- 
brous muskets. He was an admirable 
marksman, and his aim was swift as sure. 
His third barrel snapped ; with the fourth 
he felled the foremost assailant; the fifth 
wounded the next man in the leg; the 
sixth snapped again, and before he could 
draw his other repeater the pike of a 
savage brigand was at his breast. The 
same instant a shot from behind felled 
the ruffian, the clatter of horses’ hoofs 
rang on the causeway, and the next 
minute Audley saw himself surrounded 
by a little band of his own followers. He 
always kept six or eight picked men near 
him when on these dangerous expedi- 
tions, and his body-guard was not far be- 
hind when he and the corporal met with 
their adventure. The men had heard the 
noise of firing, and hastened to the scene 
of action just in time to save their com- 
mander’s life. The bushwhackers fell back 
a little before the superior discipline of 
their assailants, but only for a moment. 
A reinforcement of seventeen men, all 
armed with muskets, issued from the 
swamp at this critical juncture, and the 
assault was renewed with redoubled fury. 
Audley’s little band fought gallantty, 
but the odds were fearfully against them, 
and the nature of the ground — a boggy 
flat covered with dense thickets — was as 
unfavorable to the movements of cavalry 
as it was propitious to the manoeuvres of 
the outlaws. Two of Audlej^’s men were 
disabled at the first volley by the enemy’s 
bullets, and a third was picked off by a 
sharp-shooter as he came clattering over 
the causeway, leaving but three to sjtand 
by their leader. 

But the damage was dearly atoned for 
by the assailants. Six of them soon lay 


stretched upon the ground ; and Audley 
had just drawn his reeking sword from 
the breast of their boldest, when he him- 
self dropped to the earth, wounded by a 
bullet in the hips. His three men, seeing 
their leader fall and supposing him killed, 
were seized with a panic, and turned and 
fled as fast as their horses would carry 
them, leaving Audley alive in the hands 
of the deserters. One of the fugitives was 
killed by a rifle-ball as he fled, but the 
other two escaped and carried the tidings 
of their leader’s death to Major Mael- 
strom’s headquarters. 

The victors gave a loud yell of triumph 
when they saw the wounded officer a pris- 
oner in their hands, and gathered around 
him like wolves ravenous for their prey. 
Audley, feeling that escape was hopeless, 
and knowing only too well the horrible 
fate that awaited him, attempted to dis- 
charge the last load of his repeater in his 
own breast, but the weapon was snatched 
rudely from his failing hand. 

‘•Jest wait a bit, mister,” said a coarse 
voice close to his ear, “and we’ll send 
yer to hell without givin’ yourself the 
trouble.” 

“ Yes, wee-ens is a jolly set, and likes 
to start travelers on their way a dancin’. 
Yer never tried dancin’ on nothin’ afore, 
I reckon, did yer, mister?” said another 
harsh voice, and the speaker grinned in 
his face with a grin of savage triumph. 

“ This here is one o’ ther fine officer 
chaps,” cried a third, tearing the decora- 
tions from Audley’s collar, “ and ought to 
be made to dance the slack-rope for the 
sake o’ his quality. We-ens does things 
up hunky in these diggin’s, mister offi- 
cer, and we-ens knows what’s due to 
quality folk, if we-ens ain’t nothin’ but 
po’ trash weselves.” 

Audley was familiar enough with the 
horrid jargon of ignorance and crime to 
know that by dancing the slack-rope was 
meant the dreadful torture of suspending 
a man by the neck just high enough for 
the tips of his toes to touch the ground, 
and leaving him so until exhausted na- 
ture yielded up the ghost. 

“ Hope yer legs ain’t stiff. Cock Robin,” 
cried another of his tormentors, seizing 
Audley’s wounded limb, and giving it 
such a wrench that he with difficulty 
suppressed a scream of agony. 

“ Him ought to dance fust,” suggested 
the first speaker, “ bein’ as him’s a officer 
man.” 

“ No, let ’em all dance together,” cried 
a stalwart ruffian, wiping the sweat from 
his forehead with his bloody shirt-sleeve. 


SHOOTING A MAN IN THE BACK. 


175 


“ That’s the sort o' cotillion I likes to 
see.” 

“ But we-ens ain’t got grape-vine 
enough to ’commodate more’n two at a 
time,” objected a grimy fellow who glo- 
ried in the office of executioner, display- 
ing two coils of rope, at sight of which 
Audley shuddered in spite of himself. 
It was not the thought of death that 
filled him with horror ; he had never 
shrunk from that in field or fort; he 
had led on many a desperate charge, he 
had stormed many a bristling rampart 
and gloried in the peril ; but to die thus, 
to be hanged by a gang of ruffians and 
left to rot like a beast in the woods, to 

ass away ingloriously and no tidings of 

is fate ever reach the outer world, while 
Ruth — his heart grew sick within him, 
and his cheek, already blanched by pain 
and loss of blood, assumed a death-like 
pallor as a pang sharper than death 
pierced his inmost soul. One of the out- 
laws observed his change of color, and 
whispered to the executioner, — 

“ Better swing this un fust. Jinks,” 
indicating Audley with his hand, “ or 
un’ll slip the noose afore yer gits it over 
his head.” 

Jinks regarded Audley a moment with 
a critical eye. 

“No,” he answered, gathering up his 
ropes, “ him’ll keep better’n t’others ; and, 
besides, him ought to see ’em swing ; it 
might be a pleasure to him, yer know,” 
added Jinks, winking his eye with horrid 
mirth ; “ and we-ens loves them officer 
fellows so much, it ’ud be a pity to spile 
any pleasure for one on ’em, — ha I ha! 
ha!” 

This sentiment meeting with general 
approbation, the two of Audley’ s men 
who had been wounded were placed upon 
their horses and led under the low-spread- 
ing boughs of a noble live-oak, degraded 
now to serve the vile purposes of a gib- 
bet. The men were both dreadfully 
mangled, and one of them so nearly dead 
already that the agony he endured in 
being dragged to execution could only 
draw from him scarcely audible groans 
and sighs. The other, though a strong, 
brawny man, fairly shrieked with pain 
under the hands of his tormentors, as 
they rudely jostled his mangled and 
bleeding limbs in heaving him upon the 
horse’s hsick. Audley, wrung to the heart 
by the sufferings of his followers, implored 
for them the mercy he would not ask for 
himself. 


“ Do what you will with me,’* he said, 
raising his voice in a useless appeal to 
the ruffians, “ but spare those poor fel- 
lows. They are not your enemies ; they 
have only obeyed the commands of their 
officers. We are your real enemies that 
led them against you. Wreak your ven- 
geance on me, but for the love of God 
leave those poor wretches to die in 
peace.” 

lie fell back exhausted, amid the jeers 
of the brutal miscreants around him. 

“ Yer needn’t be afeered, Mr. Monkey- 
jack,” interposed Jinks, flourishing the 
halter he was tying in Malvern’s face, 
“ yoii-ens turn’ll come soon enough, and 
yer’ll have a good long dance of it, yer 
will, for we’se a goin’ to give yer the 
slack-rope, my mooney. By golly, ther’ll 
be mellow fruit on that ’ere tree ’bout 
a week from now ; so mellow it’ll make 
the folks that rides along the road yonder 
wonder whar them swamp-apples come 
from. The dickens I what are you a 
hollerin’ that way for?” he cried, turn- 
ing to the poor wounded wretch whose 
screams were piercing Audley’ s heart 
like arrows. “ Yer ain’t half as bad off 
as yer thinks yerself ; fust thing yer 
knows yer’ll be a dancin’ up thar like a 
’possum on a gum-stump. It’s funny,” 
he continued, with his horrid waggery, 
“ how these ’ere Government chaps does 
when we-ens catches of ’em. Set ’em on 
a hoss and they don’t go more’n ten steps 
afore they runs ther heads in a grape- 
vine,” waving his coil of rope with a sig- 
nificant gesture; “and thar they hangs 
and dances on nothin’ till they kills their- 
selves ; pity some folks is so mighty fond 
o’ dancin’, — ha! ha! ha!” 

The laugh was echoed by the by- 
standers, for Jinks was the wit of the 
company, and his hon~mots were always 
received with applause. 

Everything being now ready for the 
ball, as Jinks humorously announced it, 
two ropes were suspended from a strong 
bough, whose smaller branches had been 
hurriedly lopped away, and the horses 
bearing the two victims were stationed 
under it till the halters were adjusted, 
and then led slowly away, leaving their 
riders dangling in the air. Audley be- 
held the horrid spectacle a moment, then, 
exhausted by loss of blood and by in- 
tolerable agony of body and mind, fainted 
away in the arms of the ruffians w'ho had 
raised him up to force him to witness the 
death of his followers. 


176 


A FAMILY SECRET, 


CHAPTER XXXIX. 

GEORGE DALTON RECEIVES A TELEGRAPHIC 
DISPATCH. 

The news of Audley’s capture and 
death, which was spread by the two 
survivors of the fatal fray, carried grief 
and consternation into the little band, of 
whose movements he was the real di- 
rector. Not only was he the ablest man 
among them, but the only one who could 
with safety rely upon the fidelity of the 
uncertain and partially disaffected troops 
of which the major’s little army was com- 
posed. Drawn from the lowest and most 
Ignorant class, as the last prop of a cause 
in which they had no stake, their sympa- 
thies naturally enlisted themselves on the 
side of their own caste rather than on 
that of the Government which compelled 
their services ; and raw and undisciplined 
as they were, nothing but the personal 
influence of their commanders could re- 
strain them from deserting on every 
opportunity and going over to the enemy. 
Audley possessed in a remarkable degree 
the faculty of attaching men warmly to 
his person ; and this not by any laxity of 
discipline, but rather by that just en- 
forcement of it which gained jfiim the 
confidence of his inferiors as well as their 
respect and esteem. They saw fliat he 
knew what he was about, and would fol- 
low without hesitation wherever he led 
them, while they obeyed their other offi- 
cers timidly and with reluctance. 

Malvern’s death was a terrible blow to 
the major, who not only valued him as an 
officer but loved him as a friend. He 
sent a special messenger to bear the 
tidings to South Ambury, and wrote a 
letter to Audley’s mother with his own 
hand, in which there w^ere only seven 
words misspelt, — an attention which, if 
it were appreciated according to the labor 
it cost our worthy friend, could not be 
esteemed too highly. Upon any other 
occasion the major’s epistle would have 
excited the satirical mirth of the haughty 
old lady to whom it was addressed, but 
the news it conveyed was such as to 
banish mirth from Mrs. Malvern’s heart 
forever. Audley was dead, dead, dead ! 
that terrible word was all the missive 
contained for her 5 and she did not even 
perceive that dead was spelt dede^ and 
with a capital D. 

It would be vain to attempt to describe 
the grief of this heart-stricken mother, 
embittered as it was by the recollections 
of her last parting from the son who she 


little thought was leaving her then for- 
ever. She called to mind now, in bitter- 
ness of spirit, the mildness and forbear- 
ance with which, while still adhering 
firmly to his purpose, he had met her 
stern refusal to comply with his dearest 
wishes ; and the memory of his touching 
appeal, “Kiss me once, mother, before 
I go ; we may both be sorry for it some 
day if you don’t,” burned fiercer than 
coals of fire on her head. Tears of regret 
are bitter enough, heaven knows, but 
tears of remorse are drops from the burn- 
ing lake of hell. Oh, that last kiss of 
hers ! that cold, heartless kiss ! she would 
give heaven and earth now to touch those 
lips again, and to bestow the pledge she 
had suffered them to implore in vain. 

Mrs. Malvern was not a woman to in- 
dulge in violent outbursts of any sort, 
but the anguish that wrung her proud 
heart for the loss of her only son was 
more touching in its silent despair than 
the most frantic demonstrations of grief. 
For days aftef the dreadful news arrived 
she shut herself up in her room, and 
would suffer no one to come near her but 
Ruth. Until that time she had treated 
Audley’s affianced bride with haughty 
reserve, rarely condescending to notice 
her at all, and then bestovnng only such 
attentions as the barest requirements of 
civility demanded. But now it seemed 
like some poor atonement to cherish the 
woman Audley had loved, — to grant to 
the dead the prayer she had refused the 
living. 

It was no time for Ruth to think of re- 
senting Mrs. Malvern’s former coldness, 
and the bonds of a common grief drew 
these tAvo together in a union of sym- 
pathy stronger than the ties of blood. 
Ruth, usually so calm and patient, so 
unobtrusive of her own sorrows, gave 
way under the terrible stroke to an utter 
abandonment of grief, and for a time 
reason itself seemed in danger of sinking 
under the intolerable load. 

Julia was obliged to restrain her own 
feelings for the sake of her mother and 
Ruth; but though she shed few tears and 
uttered no regrets, it Avas plain, from her 
altered, grief-worn face, that she suffered 
more than either of them, and from a foe 
more cruel than death. 

A great change had come over Julia 
Malvern since she first dazzled South 
Ambury society with her brilliant fasci- 
nations at Claude Ilarfleur’s ball. She 
had suddenly groAvn indifferent to public 
applause after that night, and took no 
pains to please. She snubbed all the 


GEORGE DALTON RECEIVES A TELEGRAPHIC DISPATCH 177 


women, ridiculed the men, declared her 
admirers a pack of bores, and speedily- 
got rid of the last one of them. Her 
triumph was as short-lived as the caprice 
that urged her to achieve it, and in three 
weeks’ time she was as unpopular as any 
woman must be who willfully sets all the 
world at defiance. The brilliant Miss 
IMalvern, who had captivated all hearts 
on her first appearance, was now univer- 
sally pronounced a most disagreeable and 
ungracious person, and the women, as if 
by magic, all discovered her age at once. 

Instead of being disturbed at this gen- 
eral defection, Julia appeared rather to 
enjoy it. It was not the mere inner con- 
sciousness that she could, if she chose to 
make the efibrt, bring all this little world 
to her feet again, in which she took satis- 
faction, but she seemed to have arrived 
at a morbid state of feeling that made her 
actually glory in being hated. She had 
now been employed for soveral weeks in 
a Government clerkship that Major Mael- 
strom had obtained for her in South 
Ambury, by means of which she earned 
a support for her mother and herself. 
The duties of her position kept her four 
days of the week in South Ambury ; the 
remaining three she spent with her 
mother at Sandowne or the White House. 

George Dalton all this time was at the 
Confederate capital, where he had re- 
ceived a staff appointment, pursuing the 
wildest course of dissipation and debauch- 
ery that ever disgraced the son of a gen- 
tleman. He was tolerated in society, 
when he chose to keep sober, on account 
of the distinguished name he bore, and 
the extraordinary talents which, when 
unclouded by his vicious excesses, made 
him an ornament to any circle 5 but 
George seldom cared to avail himself of 
the toleration, spending his evenings in 
places and pleasures that had best be 
unnamed. It was in the midst of one of 
these wild revels that the telegraphic dis- 
patch informing him of Audley Malvern’s 
death arrived, and made a sober man of 
him instantly. He set down untasted the 
cup that he was just raising to his lips, 
and the bold, beautiful woman at his side 
shrugged her bare shoulders and stared 
when she saw his flushed face turn sud- 
denly pale and his hand tremble as he 
read the message. With a familiarity 
that betrayed but too plainly what terms 
they were on, she reached out her jeweled 
fingers to take the paper from his hand ; 
but George thrust her away with an im- 
patient gesture, and rising from the table 
hurried out of the room without a word 


to any one. Entering his own lodging, 
he locked the door, and, flinging himself 
upon the bed, sobbed as he had not done 
since he used to pour out his childish 
sorrows on his mother’s breast. They 
were honest, manly tears, and let us hope 
that George was a purer and a better 
man for having shed them. He did not 
long indulge his grief, however, buty 
issuing from his chamber, proceeded at 
once to the War Department, and ap- 
plied for leave of absence. It was easily 
obtained, for the evacuation of the city 
was already determined upon, and in 
those days, as of old, when there was /no 
king in Israel, “every man did that 
which was right in his own eyes.” Travel 
was much interrupted at that time, and 
he did not arrive at South Ambury till 
nearly two weeks after the news of xiud- 
ley’s death had reached him. What his- 
object was in leaving Richmond he had 
no definite idea when he set out, but the 
recovery of Audley’ s remains presented 
itself to him, as soon as he was able tO' 
think at all, as the first thing to be, ac- 
complished. 

He remained only one day at Sandowne,. 
and carefully avoided a meeting wdth 
Julia, though he omitted no attention to* 
her mother and Ruth. George could be- 
as loving and tender, when his better feel- 
ings were, awakened, as he was hard and 
unforgiving when angry, and his visit 
did more to soothe Mrs. Malvern’s grief’ 
than anything that had happened since 
Audley’ s death. To Ruth, his presence 
was less soothing at first, for they were 
both too much overcome to comfort one 
another. He was startled, when she 
entered the room, by the change in her 
appearance. Her face was pale as marble,, 
and had lost much of its roundness ; her 
beautiful golden hair, which she was 
wont to arrange with so much art, was 
thrust carelessly back from her forehead, 
and her plain black dress, wholly desti- 
tute of ornament, betrayed that utter ob- 
livion of appearances which does not 
come to women till some terrible stroke 
has robbed them of hope forever. Still, 
she was very beautiful, and the most in- 
different observer, beholding her un- 
adorned loveliness, would have justified 
Audley’ s choice in preferring her to all 
the world beside. She was too deeply 
moved to say much when she found her- 
self alone with Audley’s best friend, but, 
placing her hand in his, stood for several 
minutes without speaking, while the silent 
tears trickled unrestrained down her 
cheeks. 


12 


178 


A FAMILY SECEFT, 


“George,” she said, at last, making an 
effort to calm herself, “ you know what I 
have lost, for you loved him too.” 

“ That I did, God knows,” replied 
George, fervently. “ I loved him as a 
man loves the friend whom he knows will 
never forsake him. He was a brother to 
me, and more than a brother. When 
poor Harry died, I bore it like a man, 
but now ” 

His voice choked, and, resting his head 
on the mantel, he buried his face in his 
hands and wept aloud. 

“ I am a poor comforter, Ruth,” he 
said, recovering himself after a little 
while, “ for I need to be comforted my- 
self. There is one thing, however, I can 
do, which will be a melancholy satisfac- 
tion to us all, — gather up poor Audley’s 
remains and lay them in a Christian 
grave. I set out to-morrow on my melan- 
choly errand, from which I wxll not de- 
sist till I bring back with me all that is 
left of my friend.” 

Ruth pressed his hand in silence. Yet, 
full as her heart was of her own grief, 
she could think of others even then, for 
there was too little of the egotist in Ruth’s 
nature for her to be selfish, even in her 
sorrow. The signs of violent dissipation 
in George’s face had not escaped her, and 
called to mind, by a connection she did 
not stop to analyze, the wild, unhappy 
look she had often seen on Julia’s since 
the night of Claude Harfleur’s ball. The 
desolation of her own heart made her 
quick to detect and eager to heal the 
wounds of others. Oh, if these two way- 
ward spirits could only be brought to- 
gether again, what misery might they 
not both be spared ! She knew that 
hearts are softened by grief, and deter- 
mined to venture on one more effort in 
Julia’s behalf. When she spoke again, 
it was to say, timidly, — 

“Julia will be very grateful for this, 
George.” 

“ Miss Malvern has no cause whatever 
for gratitude,” replied George, suddenly 
changing his manner, “ since my actions 
are entirely uninfluenced by any regard 
for her.” 

This was unpromising, yet she ventured 
one more appeal. 

“But for his sake, George; he loved 
her so : — ^you will at least see her before 
you go, and tell her; that much is due 
his sister, and it ” 

“ I will never see her again, as long as 
I live, on any account !” burst out George, 
fiercely. “ Listen to me, Ruth : if you 
ever mention that woman’s name to me 


again, from that moment we cease to be 
friends.” His face became livid as he 
spoke, and Ruth stood aghast at the result 
of her experiment, as he turned abruptly 
from her and strode out of the room. 


CHAPTER XL. 

A GUNPOWDER PLOT. 

When George Dalton arrived at Major 
Maelstrom’s headquarters, he found the 
same confusion and disorder prevailing 
that had crept into all branches of the 
public service towards the close of the 
great civil war. Since Audley Malvern’s 
death the major had undertaken to con- 
duct operations in person, and a system 
of tactics was inaugurated that would 
have puzzled any military man living ; 
but the major, having no military educa- 
tion to bother him with rules and prece- 
dents, blundered right ahead without re- 
gard to consequences, and perhaps, after 
all, for the irregular wiirfare in which he 
w'as engaged, this was about as good a 
way of fighting as any other. He cer- 
tainly pressed matters against the out- 
laws with considerable vigor, and his men, 
exasperated at the loss of an officer whom 
they both loved and admired, engaged in 
the service with more good will than they 
had ever shown towards it before. 

George penetrated, at considerable risk 
of sharing his friend’s fate, to where the 
major with a squad of sixty men was 
scouring the borders of the great Okee- 
finokee Swamp. Ilis first act, after the 
usual interchange of courtesies, was 
to make inquiries about the locality of 
Audley’s disaster and the possibility of re- 
covering his remains. He was informed 
that the major had himself repaired to the 
scene of the conflict as soon as the news 
had reached him, and found the slain of 
Malvern’s troop all lying where they had 
fallen, but the bodies of the deserters had 
been removed, and Malvern’s along with 
them ; nor had all his efforts, as yet, de- 
tected the faintest clue to the disposition 
that had been made of it. This an- 
nouncement inspired George at first with 
a sort of forlorn hope that the report of 
his friend’s death might possibly after all 
have been premature : but a moment’s 
reflection convinced him of the utter 
vanity of such a presumption, as he be- 
thought him, wdth a shudder, of the hor* 


A GUNPOWDER PLOT. 


179 


rid fate that awaited all who fell alive into 
the hands of the outlaws. He had now a 
double motive for pushing his search : to 
get possession of Audley’s remains, and 
to clear, if possible, the awful doubts that 
the major’s recital had suggested to his 
mind. The only chance of getting informa- 
tion was, of course, through the outlaws 
themselves, and he determined, accord- 
ingly, that his best course was to remain 
with the major’s party and interrogate 
prisoners, some of whom might be induced 
to confess by the promise of pardon. 

One dark, drizzly evening, towards the 
middle of April, as George was returning 
with four of the major’s men from a scout- 
ing expedition into one of the wildest 
tracts of that almost uninhabited waste, 
they came, at nightfall, upon a solitary 
hut situated on a narrow neck of land 
that projected into a vast cypress-brake. 
The place was so secret, and the cabin so 
hidden away among the tali canes and pal- 
mettoes that hemmed it in on every side, 
as to be entirely screened from observation, 
even at a few yards’ distance, and George 
and his men would never have suspected 
its existence if accident had not conducted 
them to the very door. 

“ Thar’s one o* the nesses whar the 
birds we-ens arter rooses,” cried one of 
George’s men, springing from his horse, 

an’ we’ll make blazes on it in a jiffy.” 

They all dismounted a few paces from 
the door and approached cautiously, so 
as not to alarm the inmates and give the 
bushwhackers, if any happened to be har- 
boring there, a chance to escape. The 
door, fashioned of thin pine planks rudely 
nailed together, and swung on strips of 
raw hide for hinges, was closed, but not 
fastened, the chain used for this purpose 
being merely thrown around the upright 
plank that served for a lintel, one end 
dangling loose against the wall, while the 
other was held by a staple to the door. 

The hovel was a miserable structure, 
full of cracks and chinks, through which 
it was easy to obtain a view of the inte- 
rior. George crept up to one of these 
and looked in. The spectacle that met 
his view was much more calculated to 
inspire compassion than suspicion or 
alarm. Instead of a party of bristling 
bushwhackers, the squalid hovel shel- 
tered only two wretched-looking women 
and a troop of half-starved children. 
The elder of the two females sat upon 
a rude hide-bottomed chair, — the only 
one in the cabin, — holding a weazened 
baby to her breast, and humming to it 
in a low, monotonous voice, without re- 


moving the inevitable snuff-mop from be- 
tween her teeth. The other, a sunburnt 
damsel of some twenty-five or twenty- 
six years apparently, though probably 
much younger, when it is considered 
what havoc want and ill-usage make 
with women of her class, was squatted 
in front of the fire, shading her eyes 
with one hand, while with the other 
she turned a thin corn hoe-cake on the 
coals, — the sole provision for their even- 
ing meal. The cake looked pitiably thin 
and small to be divided among so many, 
and the hungry troop around seemed al- 
ready devouring it with their eyes. In 
a corner of the wide clay hearth were 
crouched two very young children, greed- 
ily devouring some stringy potatoes, skins 
and all, that they fished with a crooked 
stick from an ash-bank against the jamb ; 
while six others, of various sizes, stood 
around, watching with eager impatience 
the progress of the hoe-cake. George’s 
heart sickened within him, and, soldier 
as he was, he felt at that moment a loath- 
ing for war. 

“ Confound it ! I feel as if I ought to 
be sent to the penitentiary,” said George 
as he turned away, half tempted to mount 
his horse and gallop off without entering 
the cabin at all. But he remembered, 
unfortunately, that the men who accom- 
panied him were under positive and ex- 
plicit orders to search every cabin they 
came to, and burn, without fear or favor, 
every one where anything “ contraband” 
was found, and he, a mere outsider, at- 
tached in no official capacity to the ma- 
jor's cohimand, had no right to interfere 
with his plans, much less to counter- 
mand a peremptory order. It w'ould no 
doubt be a real benefit to these poor 
creatures to transfer them to “Carroll’s 
family,” where they would be well clothed 
and fed and sheltered ; but to benefit 
people against their will, especially when 
the work of benevolence is begun by 
turning them out of their home and 
burning it before their eyes, was a 
species of philanthropy not at all to 
George’s taste, and he would gladly 
have been quit of the whole business, 
lie ordered the two men whom he se- 
lected to make the search to knock at the 
door first, so as not to startle the poor 
women by bursting upon them suddenly, 
as was their usual way of proceeding. 
“ And look here, boys,” he added, in a 
very significant tone, “you needn’t find 
anything contraband, you know.” 

The first thundering rap at the door 
brought the two women to their feet. 


\ 


180 


A FAMILY SECRET, 


“Is that you, pappy ?” demanded the 
younger one, in a doubting tone. 

“No, my beauty, tain’t yer pappy this 
time,’’ answered the foremost of the 
men, imitating her voice, with the usual 
coarseness of his class, debased and bru- 
talized besides by the demoralizing in- 
fluence of war. 

Mind how you talk, sir!” cried George, 
sternly. “ Remember that we are dealing 
with women, and women who are un- 
protected ; if you dare to insult one of 
them ni blow your brains out.” 

At the sound of strange voices the 
children crowded around their mother, 
while the younger woman sprang for- 
ward, and, wrapping the loose end of the 
chain that hung from the door-post about 
her arm, stood undaunted as Lady Cath- 
erine Douglas defending her king in the 
Abbey at Perth. 

“ Yerd better take yer clo'es-wringer 
outen that ’ere chain, my fairy queen, ef 
yer don’t want to git yer bones broke,” 
said the man outside, forgetful already 
of George’s not very gentle admonition. 
And he accompanied the words with a 
thundering blow from the butt of his 
musket that made the rude portal reel on 
its hinges. 

“ You’d better hold that infernal 
tongue of yours,” cried George, clapping 
a pistol to the man’s head, “if you don’t 
want to get your brains knocked out. 
This rickety hull can be forced without 
hurting the young woman, and if you 
harm a hair of her head, your own shall 
answer for it.” 

The door, in truth, proved a very small 
obstacle in their way, for by cutting the 
strips of hide that served for hinges, ac- 
cess was easily gained without violence 
to the young woman. 

Upon the entrance of the strangers, 
the children scattered like a flock of par- 
tridges to the canebrake, except the two 
youngest and the oldest, a boy of some 
ten or twelve years, who paused before 
taking to flight and glanced at his mother. 
The woman answered the look with a 
scarcely perceptible inclination of the 
head, and hastily told ofP the fingers of 
^her right hand on the palm of her left, 
as though she were counting. The boy 
watched her attentively till she had told 
off six, then, before any one had time to 
arrest him, darted through the open door, 
and sped away to the swamp. The 
woman sat cowering over the fire, with 
her baby pressed to her breast, and the 
other little ones clinging in terror to her 
knees, while her younger companion 


stood immovable upon the threshold, 
with her brown, sunburnt arms folded 
tight across her breast, glaring at the 
intruders with wild, defiant eyes, but 
uttering not a word either of entreaty or 
invective. 

George had remained without, through 
sheer cowardice, as he confessed to him- 
self, and watched the proceedings of his 
men through the open door. lie had not 
long to wait the result of their search, 
for, at their first dive into the heap of 
dirty rags that served for a bed, they 
brought out two muskets and a brace of 
silver-mounted pistols, evidently plun- 
dered from some United States officer, 
for they bore the national monogram ele- 
gantly engraved upon the handles. Fur- 
ther search brought to light three kegs 
of gunpowder, a box of cartridges, an 
officer’s sword, splendidly jeweled, and a 
Winchester rifle of the finest make. 

“ Confound the scoundrels, they have 
gone and found something, after all 1” 
growled George, as he witnessed this dis- 
covery, which made it his unwelcome 
duty to drag a family of helpless women 
and children from their home and burn 
it before their eyes. Oh, you whose 
thoughtless fancy is dazzled with the 
“ pomp and circumstance of glorious 
war,” could your vain imaginations con- 
ceive of half the dark, inglorious deeds 
that are hidden from your ken by the 
show and the glitter and the shock of 
battles and the march of mighty hosts, 
how often would your cheeks tingle with 
shame for mankind, vrhere now they 
glow with rapture over his boasted deeds 
of glory ! 

There was nothing for it now but to 
permit the men to proceed with the exe- 
cution of the unrelenting orders under 
which they were acting. Feeling more 
like a detected criminal himself than an 
officer charged with the punishment of 
crime, George advanced to the threshold 
of the cabin, and announced to the 
women as gently as he could the sen- 
tence he had no power to remit, and ad- 
vised them to get together such of their 
effects as they desired to carry away with 
them. He had not the heart to turn 
them out-of-doors in the night, but deter- 
mined to keep a w'atch over the cabin 
till morning, by which time he hoped a 
wagon that he dispatched a messenger 
for would arrive. The women listened 
to his words in sullen silence, and never 
budged towards making the preparations 
he advised. 

“ I am very sorry you have laid your- 


EIZPAH. 


181 


selves open to this severity,” pursued 
George, feeling more and more like a 
convicted felon at every word, “but you 
knew the law, and incurred the risk with 
your eyes open. You have no personal 
violence to fear, for I give you my word 
that, come what will, you shall receive 

the treatment due to you as ” 

“Jest what yer’ll git yerself, mister,” 
interrupted a rude voice close behind 
him. and before George could turn round 
a Herculean blow from the butt of a 
musket felled him to the ground, and six 
tall bushwhackers rushed into the room. 
A desperate struggle now ensued be- 
tween the outlaws and George’s men. 
Hand to hand and breast to breast, they 
wrestled in the terrible embraces of 
hatred till the floor beneath them was 
dyed with blood. The elder of the two 
women, dragging her children after her, 
fled to the swamp, but the younger re- 
mained immovable, with her hands folded 
on her breast, a silent spectator of the 
fray. The cabin was set on fire during 
the strile, by a brand hurled by one of 
the combatants, which lighted on the 
bed. At last three of the bushwhackers 
were slain, and the others, finding it use- 
less to cope with the superior strength 
and equipments of the cavalrymen, took 
to flight and made for the canebrake, 
hotly pursued by their enemies. When 
they were gone the young woman moved 
for the first time. Lifting the bodies of 
the dead bushwhackers one by one in 
her arms, she dragged them by main 
strength from the burning cabin. Then, 
taking one of the three kegs of powder 
that were still lying along with the 
stolen weapons on the floor, she placed it 
under George Dalton’s head, and, gather- 
ing the other two in her arms, hurried 
away towards the brake, leaving George 
senseless on the floor, with the cabin in 
flames around him. 


CHAPTER XLI. 

RIZPAH. 

The course of our narrative must now 
turn backward a little to trace the adven- 
tures of other important persons con- 
cerned in it. 

While Audley Malvern was lying in- 
sensible in the hands of the outlaws, two 
more of the gang, who had scented the 


battle from afar, arrived upon the scene. 
All hands were busy at that moment try- 
ing to restore the prisoner to conscious- 
ness, lest death should cheat them of their 
revenge. < 

The two new-comers stood looking on 
in silence till signs of returning life ap- 
peared, then one of them whispered some- 
thing to his comrade, and, calling aside a 
vicious-looking fellow who seemed to be 
the big man of the crew, a lengthy con- 
sultation ensued between them, during 
which the two new-comers seemed to be 
arguing some point pretty stoutly with 
him of the vicious countenance. The man 
who had started the discussion was no 
other than our old friend Jim Chance, 
who had fallen within the last con- 
scription, and fled from his home to 
escape the enrolling officer. Though Jim 
hated aristocrats in the abstract, “ like 
pizen,” as he expressed it, his bitterness 
did not extend itself to individuals, and 
if let alone he would have crawled 
through life in his own lazy fashion 
without ever iplotting harm to creatures 
more exalted than ribbits and ’possums. 
Audley Malvern had been good-natured 
to Jim on several occasions during his 
stay at Sandowne, and had once made 
him a present of some buck-shot and a 
plug of tobacco. Jim, though he had 
arrived at the guilty eminence of being 
accounted a public enemy, was not utterly 
devoid of gratitude, and it is probable 
that the discussion with the foreman of 
the gang grew out of an appeal for Aud- 
ley’ s life. However that may be, Jim and 
his companion failed to come to an agree- 
ment with the foreman, who turned away 
at last, saying, peevishly, — 

“Waal, I reckon we better send fur the 
cap’en to settle the business hissef. He 
can’t be more’n a hour’s ride from here 
by now, and Ben Cullers can git on one 
o’ them derned rebels’ horses and fetch 
him afore you can say ^ git out.’ ” 

“ The cap’en be hanged!” growled Mr. 
Jinks, the executioner, who had been an 
interested listener to the discussion. 
“ HeTl be sure to spile the fun ef its lef’ 
to him. He never does want the boys to 
have a rope dance ; don’t you remember 
how he made us shoot them fellers we 
caught at Old Caney, though everything 
was ready for stringin’ of ’em up? And 
he’d a let ’em clean off, I b’lieve, ef he 
hadn’ been afeered o’ a mutiny. A pretty 
fix my business ’ud be in ef Cap’en Roby 
allers had his way.” 

“ He do favor the prisoners raos’ too 
much,’^ put in a third speaker. “ He 


182 


A FAMILY SECRET, 


never has let us have a slack-rope dance 
sence he come amon^ us ef he knov^^ed it, 
but he’s a bully old boy for all that. 
W e’se took more prisoners and more 
plunder, and lost fewer men sence he’s 
been our leader nor ever we done before.” 

‘‘ That’s so,” cried a chorus of voices. 
“ Hurrah for Cap’en Roby !” 

It was clear that Roby’s star was in 
the ascendant, so after some further par- 
ley the executioner reluctantly laid down 
his cord, while Ben Cullers mounted the 
horse from which Audley had fallen and 
rode rapidly away. In less than two 
hours he returned accompanied by the 
captain of the band and two other 
mounted men. I'he bushwhackers fell 
back respectfully before their chief, but 
without saluting or uncovering them- 
selves. The vicious-looking foreman ap- 
proached as he dismounted, and addressed 
him without preliminary ceremony. 

“ We’ve had a bit of fun here to-day, 
cap’en,” he began, ‘‘ and was about to 
wind up the show with a slack-rope 
dance, when Jim Chance and Tom 
Ponder they comes up and will have it 
that that ’ere prize-cock yonder,” pointing 
over his shoulder to Audley, “ is the chap 
what you charged us about so pertic’lar. 
It looked like a pity to spile the boys’ 
fun ; but you was so partic’lar in chargin’ 
of us not to kill the one what you spoke 
about, that I thought we’d better wait 
tell you could come and see for yerself ef 
this ’un was the right chap. Thar he 
lies, live enough tu tell his name I reckon, 
and here’s his papers I tuck from his 
pocket ; mebbe they’ll tell you more’n 
he'd like tu hissef.” 

Saying this, he produced three or four 
private letters and the little note-book 
that the reader is already acquainted 
with, — the only papers Audley had about' 
him at the time, — and gave them to the 
commander-in-chief. The latter, with- 
out glancing at the letters, opened the 
note-book, and, as he did so, Bruen Ilar- 
fleur’s sketch of Ruth and the pale blonde 
curl that Claude had restored to Audley 
so unexpectedly on the night of the ball 
at the White House slid from between 
the leaves and fell fluttering to the 
ground. Why did the bushwhacker’s 
hand tremble as he gathered them up ? 
and why did his rude Angers stroke that 
silky ringlet so caressingly as he replaced* 
it between the leaves from which it had 
fallen? Did the sight bring back to his 
darkened heart the memory of a time 
when a woman’s soft curls had rested on 
the brawny chest, swept now only by his 


own shaggy beard ? and was his rugged 
nature touched for a moment with tender 
pity for the gentle head so soon to be 
bowed in mourning for a lover? That 
little tress of golden hair told its own 
simple story, and pleaded more elo- 
quently for the captive’s life than words 
of poetic fire. There was moisture in the 
bushwhacker's e3^es as he closed the book 
and thrust Ruth’s picture hastily out of 
sight, as though he dared not gaze upon 
it. He then proceeded to the spot where 
Malvern lay stretched upon the ground ; 
and, as he bent over to see his face, the 
captive opened his eyes, and, with a start, 
the two men recognized each other, for this 
outlaw chief Avas no other than the prisoner 
whom Audley’ s interposition had rescued 
from death on the day of the tournament. 
The young man roused himself an instant 
from the stupor in which he had lain 
since his fainting-At, and made a feeble 
efibrt to clutch the stranger’s hand. He 
was fast lapsing into a state of delirium 
from the fever caused by his wound, and 
his mind could form no connected train 
of thought ; but the sight of this Avanderer, 
associated so vaguely and mysteriously 
with Ruth’s history, recalled his wander- 
ing faculties for a moment to a recollection 
of the m3’'sterious part he seemed to play 
in that strange drama. 

“The ring! the ring! tell me,” he 
muttered, clinging with his failing hand 
to the bushwhacker’s arm and Axing his 
eyes with a wild, feverish stare upon his 
face •, “ tell me for her sake, tell me,” he 
repeated *, but the words he Avanted would 
not come, and the question died aAvay in 
incoherent mutterings about the girl he 
loved. He felt himself drifting hopelessly 
aAvay into the chaos of delirium ; he kneAV 
there was something he wanted to say, 
something he must say, but, like one 
oppressed with nightmare, the utterance 
he strove so hard for stuck in his throat, 
and the speech he would frame broke from 
his lips in unintelligible jargon. By and 
by even that consciousness forsook him ; 
he loosened his grasp of the outlaw’s arm, 
and wandered aAvay into Avild delirious 
ravings, during which Ruth’s name AA^as 
constantly on his lips. The busIiAvhacker 
listened with a softened countenance, and 
there was something of almost womanly 
tenderness in the touch of his great broAvn 
hands as he raised the young man’s head 
gently from the damp earth and placed 
his own jacket under it for a pillow. 
Then he turned to his men : 

“ You Avere right, boys,” he said ; “ this 
is the young officer I wanted you to save. 


RIZPAK 


183 


lie saved me onst when I was in a worser 
scrape nor he’s in now, and you all know, 
though Dick Koby ain’t nothin’ but a 
cussed outlaw, he ain’t the man to forget 
a favor. But, come,” he added, “we’d 
better make off from these parts, or the 
blood-hounds ’ll be on us afore we knows 
it.” 

Some of the men looked a little sullen 
at being cheated of their revenge, but 
Roby’s influence was paramount, and 
they all obeyed without a word. The 
bodies of their fallen comrades were car- 
ried a few rods into the swamp and buried 
there in the slime, while the carcasses of 
their enemies were left a prey to birds of 
the air and beasts of the field. Audley 
was placed upon a rude litter, hastily con- 
structed out of the branches of trees, and 
borne away on the shoulders of four 
sinewy bushwhackers. For two or three 
weeks all was a blank to him. The in- 
flammation resulting from his painful, 
but not necessarily fatal wound, together 
with the intense mental excitement that 
followed it, had brought on a violent fever, 
attended with constant delirium, during 
which he was totally insensible to all that 
was passing around him. 

When consciousness began to return, 
he found himself on a coarse but clean 
bed in a small hut, very roughly but 
strongly built of stout unhewn logs, and 
fortified outside, as he could see through 
the chinks around his bed, by a stockade 
of upright poles driven into the ground. 
There was no window in the cabin, and 
the position of his bed did not admit of 
his getting a glimpse through the door •, 
but it was evident, from the croaking of 
frogs and the mournful notes of night- 
birds that filled the air as soon as the sun 
went down, that it was situated in or 
near some extensive swamp. lie was too 
weak and faint at first to take much notice 
of things around him, or to think much 
about his situation. He was attended 
day and night by a negro boy, whose name 
he had somehow got it into his head was 
Grigg ; though whether he had really 
heard somebody call him so, or had only 
dreamed it, he could not tell. Sometimes, 
especially at night, he would hear a con- 
fused hum of voices and shuffling of feet 
outside, as though men were passing hur- 
riedly hither and thither ; but only two 
persons, besides the negro, ever entered 
the cabin. 

One of these was a young woman, who 
came every morning to bring some prep- 
aration that she had cooked for the in- 
valid. Audley heard her called Nan 


Hackettby the men outside the hut, and, 
though she seldom came near his bed, he 
could see that she was a tall, raAv-boned 
lass, like the “ cracker” girls he had seen 
in “ Carroll’s famil}?’,” with bare, brown 
feet, hands hardened by toil, and a face 
not beautiful to look upon, but with some- 
thing so fierce and wild about it, so differ- 
ent from the cowed and spiritless look 
habitual to her class, as to give it the 
interest of novelty. As Audley’ s conva- 
lescence progressed. Nan ceased to visit 
the cabin at all, and his food was prepared 
by Grigg in a little iron stew pan before 
the light-wood blaze that burned on his 
hearth all day, but was carefully extin- 
guisheff^t night. 

The other person that entered the hut 
was a man, who felt the invalid’s pulse 
regularly night and morning, and ques- 
tioned Grigg anxiously concerning him. 
His voice wms so low that Audley caught 
but few of his words, and the light in the 
cabin was so dim, even at mid-day, and 
his own perceptions at first so uncertain, 
that he could only form a vague conjec- 
ture as to who the visitor was. AFhen he 
had recovered his faculties somewhat, he 
questioned his negro attendant closely 
about this mysterious person, and heard 
from him a marvelous story about Cap’en 
Roby, with two other men, having found 
him in a cave when he was a runaway, 
and assisting him to escape from his mas- 
ter. Grigg said the cap’en and the two 
men had “ runned away” from Anderson- 
ville. and that they had been living among 
the deserters, in the hope of escaping to 
the Yankees. “ The other men wasn’t 
nothin’ but po’ white trash,” said Grigg, 
“but Roby hissef was a rale genleman, 
though he did try to make folks b’lieve 
he warn’t nothin’ but old po’ buckrah.” 
How Grigg made this discovery he could 
not tell, but he “ jes’ knowed it, ’cause he 
knowed it and this was all Audley 
could get out of him. 

It happened one evening, as Grigg was 
preparing his patient’s supper, a sort of 
broth made of rice boiled with the flesh 
of wild-fowl, that a great tramping and 
rushing to and fro was heard on a sudden 
outside the cabin, mingled with the hum 
of voices in excited consultation, as though 
some startling intelligence had drawn 
large numbers of the bushwhackers to 
their rendezvous. Unable himself to move 
a step without assistance, Audley sent 
Grigg to the door to see what was going 
on •, but the negro was turned back at the 
threshold by the outlaw chief, who at that 
moment strode into the room, followed by 


184 


A FAMILY SECRET. 


six stout bushwhackers, all armed to the 
teeth. 

“I am sorry to disturb you, colonel,” 
said the chief, addressing Audley in a 
respectful tone, but I hope you are not 
too weak to stand a bit of a journey, 
for we shall have to take you traveling 
to-night.” 

This was all the explanation vouchsafed 
the prisoner, and as Audley was in no 
condition to make resistance he yielded 
himself passively into the hands of the 
armed ruffians, by whom he was placed 
on a rude litter and borne out into the 
open air. 

In the mean time the cabin was hastily 
dismantled, all traces of occupancy being 
carefully removed, the door stove in, and 
the chimney pulled down, to give it the 
appearance of having been- long deserted. 
Roby superintended all these arrange- 
ments in person, and issued his orders 
with a promptness and decision that 
showed him to be perfectly at home in 
such emergencies. His rude foll(fwers 
yielded him implicit obedience, and 
Audley could not help admiring the 
penetration and sagacity evinced in all 
the operations of this wild marauder. 

In less than an hour all their prepara- 
tions were complete, and the outlawed 
band set out upon its nocturnal march. 
The night was very dark, the sky being 
overcast with low, leaden clouds, from 
which a drizzly rain w^as falling, so that 
Audley could not tell how many men 
were in the party, but he judged, from 
the tramping of their feet and the length 
of time they took in filing past him, — 
for his litter brought up the rear of the 
troop, — that there were over a hundred 
of the rogues on foot, besides a small 
party of horse led by Roby, that went 
ahead to scour the country. It was evi- 
dent, from the haste they made and the 
vigilance with wTiich they looked about 
them, that the movement was not a foray, 
but a flight, and a very precipitate one 
at that. 

Their route 'was confined to the wildest 
and most unfrequented regions, now pick- 
ing their way through dismal swamps, 
whose oozy sod scarce yielded footing to 
the most cautious step, now winding 
through trackless forests of pine, with no 
guide save some wandering cattle-trail, 
and the instincts of their own gipsy 
natures. They carefully avoided every 
open highway, and when their route from 
one desert w^aste to another lay across 
any of the paths of civilized man, they 
never ventured upon the transit till after 


a careful reconnoissance, both up and 
down the road. They marched in the 
most profound silence, no sound issuing 
from their ranks save the measured tramp 
of the men as they wound their way 
among the pines, like a procession of 
silent ghosts speeding on some direful 
errand from another world. The melan- 
choly music, of the pines was broken now 
and then by the hooting of the great owl, 
scared from her perch by this midnight 
invasion of her solitary kingdom, while 
on the borders of fens and marshes the 
lonely note of the whip-poor-will mingled 
with the w'eird chorus of ten thousand 
frogs. The bearers of Audley’ s litter 
were changed, every half-hour at a signal 
from Roby, without a word spoken ; and 
the chief rode up to his side frequently 
during the night, as if inspecting care- 
fully the arrangements for his comfort, 
but forbore any remark to the prisoner. 
As Audley was as comfortable as circum- 
stances would permit, and as he was in a 
state that compelled him to utter pas- 
sivity, he remained as silent as his bearers, 
betraying neither anxiety nor curiosity 
as to their movements. 

Towards daybreak the bushwhackers 
slackened their pace somewhat, and 
seemed to breathe more freely, as if they 
considered their worst danger, whatever 
it was, over. They began to carry on 
scraps of conversation along the line, and 
Audley heard one of his weary bearers 
say to another, with a long sigh of 
relief, — 

“We must be nigh the place by this 
time, Dan.” 

“ Yes,” replied Dan, echoing the sigh, 
“thar’s the M-tickohatchee S^vamp right 
ahead, and tain’t more’n four mile across 
’long here.” 

They now plunged into a densely over- 
grown and very boggy lowland, with a 
creek running through the centre, which 
they had to ascend for some distance 
before they could find a practicable ford. 
The track seemed a familiar one to the 
bushwhackers, for they followed without 
difficulty the part where the footing Avas 
firmest, and seemed to know exactly the 
spot where the creek could best be forded ; 
yet, with all their experience, so great 
were the difficulties of the way that they 
were more than two hours in crossing the 
SAvamp, and the sickly dawn had strug- 
gled through the clouds Avhen they reached 
its outer edge. As they emerged upon 
an open space a thin l)lue smoke that 
went curling up from behind a wall of 
cane and palmetto, a little farther on, 


A DESCENT INTO HELL, 


185 


attracted their attention and seemed to 
diffuse universal satisfaction. 

“ Thar’s the house!” cried a chorus of 
delighted voices ; ‘‘ we’ll be at it in no 
time.” 

“ Jingo ! and Nan’s got her fire up for 
a bully breakfast,” replied the foremost 
litter-bearer. 

“Bully for- her!” cried his right-hand 
companion. “Nan llackett's a gal as is 
a gal.” 

With sundry other compliments to Nan 
and her “ ciusme,” the tired troop pressed 
eagerly forward ; and scrambling through 
the canebrake to the neck of dry land 
beyond, saw before them the smoking 
ruins of the cabin that George Dalton’s 
men had burned the night before. 

A young woman was sitting dejectedly 
beside the ruins, with three corpses at her 
feet, like Rizpah of old, suffering “ neither 
the birds of the air to rest upon them by 
day, nor the beasts of the field by night.” 
Her feet were bare, and her scanty cloth- 
ing, drenched with moisture, was tattered 
and burnt in many places, exposing her 
sunbrown'ed arms and shoulders to the 
damp breezes of the swamp ; but her 
thoughts were intent only upon the cold, 
stark figures at her feet ; and she heeded 
neither wind nor sky, nor the chilling 
mist that penetrated to her very bones. 
Her hair was wet with the dew of heaven, 
and fell in coarse, disheveled masses 
over her temples and bosom, concealing 
her features from view, till a sudden 
rustling among the canes, as her country- 
men forced their way through the brake, 
caused her to turn her head, — and Aud- 
ley recognized at a glance the wild, rest- 
less eyes of the girl who had carried him 
his broth in the early days of his conva- 
lescence. Poor Nan 'had dragged from 
the burning hovel, whose embers were 
still smoking beside her, the bloody re- 
mains of her father, her brother, and 
her sister’s husband. Rude, unpolished 
boors they were, unversed in all those 
little arts by which men of gentler blood 
soothe and brighten the lives of women, — 
and sometimes, alas, deceive and betray 
them as well. They were ill-favored and 
unlovely to look upon, these kinsmen of 
Nan Hackett; their manners were coarse 
and brutal ; they had often beaten and 
ill-used her •, and if the heart doled out its 
affection by rule and by measure, small 
reason had Nan to weep for their death. 
But they were her own flesh and blood, 
her comrades in the hard battle poor Nan 
had had with life ; and though they often 
made her battle the harder, still, she had 


never known anything better : they were 
hers, all she had ; and no wonder, then, 
that her cheeks were haggard and her 
eyes wild, as she sat keeping her solitary 
watch in the misty, morning twilight. 

Roby's band uttered a yell of rage and 
despair as this melancholy spectacle burst 
upon their view. They readily divined 
the meaning of the picture. Their last 
refuge had been set upon and destroyed 
by Government scouts ; and the squad 
they had sent to prepare it for their re- 
ception, and to spy out the land before 
them, had all been slain or made pris- 
oners ; not even a woman or child had 
escaped to warn them of the disaster, — 
George’s men, in their ho£ pursuit, having 
captured all save Nan, who lay hid in the 
thicket till the glare of the burning hut 
had faded from the midnight sky. 

- Some of the men approached Nan and 
began to question her, while others gath- 
ered round Audley, with menacing looks, 
threatening to sacrifice him in retaliation 
for their slaughtered comrades, and even 
Roby’s influence seemed likely to prove 
of no avail to divert them from their pur- 
pose. While they were thus engaged, an 
ominous tramping of horses was heard 
in the distance. The outlaws pricked up 
their ears and listened. The sound was 
approaching rapidly, and Roby gave the 
signal for his men to retreat into the 
swamp ; but before it could be obeyed a 
troop of fifty horsemen dashed across the 
little isthmus and came charging into 
their midst, — not a ragged, rebel troop 
of limping invalids and unfledged boys, 
but a smart, sleek, well-ordered company 
of Yankees, perfectly mounted and 
equipped, and all glorious in fresh blue 
uniforms and shining brass buttons, 
with a spick and span new star-spangled 
banner flying over their heads. Strangest 
of all, thisioyal band Avas led by a dash- 
ing rebel omcer, in full Confederate uni- 
form, and that officer was George Dalton ! 


CHAPTER XLII. 

A DESCENT INTO HELL. 

AYhen Nan Hackett had disposed 
George Dalton’s head as Ave have seen 
Avith a keg of powder for a pilloAv, she 
retired a safe distance Avithin the SAvamp 
to wait until the explosion should be OA’er. 
But Nan Avas neA^er destined to enjoy her 


186 


A FAMILY SFCEET. 


revenge, for the little gunpowder-plot 
she had prepared so dexterously came to 
naught as unexpectedly as the nefarious 
schemes of Guy Fawkes. 

The blow George received had only 
thoroughly stunned him, and, though 
leaving him apparently lifeless, the hurt 
in itself was by no means fatal, or even 
serious. Nan, in moving his head, had 
caused him partially to recover sensi- 
bility, though in a very faint and imper- 
fect degree. lie had no power to move 
a muscle, and though painfully conscious 
by this time of the conflagration raging 
around him, the severe scorching he be- 
gan to experience only suggested to his 
fancy weird and' horrible dreams, without 
awakening the capacity to escape. He 
thought he had been killed in the fray, 
of which some vague impression still 
lingered in his mind, and that he, had 
waked up at last in the region of fire and 
brimstone, which he had so often heard 
described as the eternal abode of the 
damned. The awful hallucination was 
not dispelled at finding himself the sole 
occupant of a place to which the ortho- 
dox tell us the bulk of the human family 
has been hastening for six thousand 
years. Still, he was surprised at finding 
hell so silent and deserted, and could not 
help wondering Avhere the deuce all the 
otheiv wicked felloAvs had gone, nor, I 
blush to record it, could he quite repel a 
feeling of disappointment at meeting 
none ofi his acquaintance, many of 
whom he thought were quite as promis- 
ing candidates for devilship as himself. 

While he lay turning these things over 
in his mind, and wondering if he were 
the only damned soul in hell after all, 
there arose all at once such a terrible 
clatter that he thought Old Nick himself 
must be coming in state, and suddenly a 
number of devils presented themselves to 
his view. Curiously enough, all these 
devils had on the Yankee uniform. There 
must have been a battle in the world 
above, he thought, and the slain were 
arriving in a body at their destination. 
It was comforting, at any rate, to find 
that only the Yankees were sent to hell. 
But what right, by Jove ! had Old Nick 
to be claiming him in that category? lie 
wouldn’t stand it, by George! He owed 
the old rascal a grudge anyway for that 
scorching, and now to be insulted on top 
of it was more than a well-bred devil 
could stand. 

But, strange to say, the climate of the 
infernal regions seemed to improve as 
Boon as these blue devils appeared. He 


felt himself cooling ofiP most agreeably as 
they laid their hands upon him. Very 
soon the flames disappeared, and in an- 
other moment he felt the cooling drops 
that Dives had prayed for in vain trick- 
ling gratefully over his forehead. He 
next became conscious that he was lying 
on the ground, with his head on some- 
body’s knee; he felt the night-wind fan 
his cheek, he saw, ^by the flare of the 
burning cabin, the friendly pines waving 
above his head, and recognized, with a 
bounding heart, that he was still in the 
world of living men. He then lay for 
some time with his eyes closed, while 
his mind returned to a full consciousness 
of all that had just happened to him. At 
last, quite restored to his senses, he opened 
his eyes again, and turned them, with no 
small curiosity, to the face of the person 
on whose knee his head was resting. In 
doing so he recognized a Yankee officer, 
several years his junior, whom he had 
known as a lieutenant in the old service. 
He raised himself instantly, pressed his 
hand to his forehead as if collecting his 
senses, and then the whole truth flashed 
upon him. 

George was the first to speak, for the 
Yankee, knowing the intense bitterness 
that rankled in Southern hearts at that 
time, felt a delicacy in obtruding himself 
upon George’s notice. 

“ Come, Schuyler, give us your hand,” 
he said, frankly offering his own. “ The 
last time we met. I believe, was at Chan- 
cellorsville, where we were both doing 
our best to kill each other ; but I see that, 
like a generous fellow, you are quite as 



“ And much more so, Dalton, in the 
case of an enemy like you. if you will 
persist in calling yourself one,” re- 
plied Schuyler, cordially grasping the 
hand George had extended to him. “I 
would rather have captured you just when 
I did than a whole regiment of your 
rebels. But come, tell me. old fellow, 
how the deuce you came to be in such a 
plight, and with this villainous thing 
under your head, too,” placing his foot 
on Nan’s keg of powder, which his men 
had removed from the cabin. “ ’Tisn’t 
exactly the pillow a fellow would choose 
of his own accord, especially for such a 
warm bed as we found you in. There 
seems to have been a bit of a shindy, 
too,” pointing to the corpses Nan had 
dragged from the cabin, “ and the fun 
was rather overpowering for some of the 
company.’^ 


A DESCENT INTO HELL. 


187 


George explained, briefly, the circum- 
stances attending the destruction of the 
cabin, and then he spoke of Malvern’s 
death, and the reasons which had induced 
him to engage in this wild, uncivilized 
warfare. The Yankee^ expressed much 


known Malvern m 
mbered the won- 
which all the 
o look u|i^o 
the army, 
self, Geor 


Yankee ^liii^r the old 



concern, for he had 
the old service, and 
dering 
young li 
‘‘ the handsd 
Having acc 
next proceeded] 
as to his appearance 
from the enemy’s line o' 
is,” he added, ‘Gf I am 
formation that would be con 
“ No, I guess’ not,” replied 
‘‘as I am on an errand somewhat 
to your own, and shouldn’t wonde 
was in search of the^ery same rase 
Some of the natives here fell upon 
rear of one of our baggage- trains, mur- 
dered several of the men, and plundered 
their camp, carrying ofl* all their horses, 
arms and ammunition, together with a 
lot of things belonging to officers of the 
division, among which was a splendidly 
jeweled sword of General Bagpipe’s, who, 

you know, is in command at ” 

“ My head on it,” exclaimed George, 
“ that was the toy I unearthed in the 
cabin yonder, along with a lot of other 
plunder. I can’t tell what became of it 
in the fray, but if it was old Bagpipe’s, 
I wish, with all my heart, it was run 
through his body.” 

“ Some of his own men wouldn’t be 
sorry if you had your wish,” said Schuy- 
ler, laughing; “but my business at pres- 
ent is to recover old Bag’s plaything, if I 
can, and not to run it through his body. 
I have been sent out with one hundred 
men to hunt up these rascals and give 
them a lesson that will make them more 
cautious in future. Some of my scouts 
scented a nest of them day before yester- 
day in a swamp not far from here. I se^ 
a detachment thi^ morning to captur||?t, 
but have not heard the result yet. 
see, I think from what you tell me^e ace 
on the right trail ; you say t 
arms found in the hut?” 

“ Plenty of them, and mud 
they would be likely to cap 
of us poor devils of Southe 
“ Did you notice what m 
“Not particularly, but 
new and well ordered for, re 
The Yankee stooped d 
amined the powder-keg. 

Arago,” he said, reading the label on 


head. “ They are the chief contractors 
for supplying the United States Govern- 
ment with gunpowder. It’s plain we are 
on the right scent. See here, Dalton ; as 
you are familiar with the country round 
here, and we are both after the same 
game, suppose you join forces with me 
for a day or so. You can help me in 
finding my way through these infernal 
marshes, and I may be able to further the 
object of your search. The war is over, 
jAnyway, so you needn’t scruple to come 


flag once 


more, and fiaht 


sid^by side, instead of face to face, with 
youi^'old comrades.” 

This wa s rat her a startling proposition 
to a ConfaBHlj^ who was naturally not 
quite so r^HH^^is Yankee interlocu- 
to admit't^BHli^struggle was over ; 
the plan se^^^^^ good one, and 
after balanci^|»a moment be- 
latred of the old flag and his 
jlearn more about Audley, 
To adopt Schiller’s sugges- 

“ M^ forces, at present^jjbonsist , of a 
single man,” he replied ; h-alf a 

dozen vagabonds seeing rf;y^e taken them- 
selves ofi:‘ without cerefnijny. I’l^gb ajong 
with you, however, a^ do wlgtat I can ifo 
aid you capture these togue^ihoughVJ^ 
little thought that we'^should everJ^mU tp^? 
gether in the same harness agaitij 
ler’ after I kicked out (^r th0 ,old 

Matters being thuslsettle^^cfeuji 
mounted George on ' 
conducted him to 
ordered his 
or four miles 
and refresh] 
able ni 
In 




bavin 
of th 
the j 

chytf 




dor by kilifi|_on|^‘ 
lackers and ca| ’ ““ _ 
to^’ either with theT^iin'e 
their mother, bethefi^S't 
en^th of their comm aimer. 

to the cabin to Tupk for 
ing it nothing but ajpeap of 
ruins, concluded he had 
I hurried off withTlieir pris- 
to report the tidings ^^leadquar- 

i. 

t daybreak next morhij^g Schuyler 
Dalton set out on th^ expedition, 
irecting their course fir|it towards the 
scene of the past night’s^ adventure, as the 
point where they might^dth most reason 
expect to find some triroes of the enemy. 
What success they met with the reader 
already knows, in part. 


188 


A FAMILY SECRET, 








CHAPTER XLIIL 


A RESURRECTION FROM THE DEAD. 


The outlaws made no attempt at re- 
sistance when Schuyler's troop rushed 
upon them, but, after the first paralyzed 
pause of surprise and alarm, fled pell- 
mell into the swamp. Nan Ilackett and 
the chief alone remained immovable be- 
side the litter on which Audley Malvern 
was stretched. 

A discharge from the assailants’ guns 
killed several of the fugitives '^nd 
wounded others before they could gain 
the shelter of the caneb^gj^. Among 


the latter fell Roby 
bullet, at Malver 
does had never 
Roby’s leniency 
and one of the 
civilized man, took 


leader’s fall 


valid’s hearts 
light. 




otW^n 
resolutely o'' 




i$ne m 


ith a fatal 
e desperi 
econciled t 
g the 
ad fu 
advan 
) aim a bulM yt fhe 
s he hurried hiih-in 
le ball would" '^ife^f^ably 
;al but for the interference 
who clapped her hand 
muzzle of the gun, 
let in her palm. The 


ad 


ind 


ng 


rfully mangled, but no 
entof the moment per - 
ras hurt. Nan was used 


quietly wrappe(|[ Jrer 
a corner of her ragged 
d her station by the 
uttered no word of 
d no sign of pain, 
the trouble to 
seen just 


lave 


er 


Dse Ikfe sh;^' 
r Audle;^ 
of the bulIeF I 
d the hand t&a 
one thought fifted 
was dying, and' w 
hope of clearin 


her face 
upon the 




f 


scions 
it his 
(g^ave 
"'n^ : 


over Ruth’s life. frxui as 


The horrible thought was put into 
words at last, and Audley fairly gasped 
as he uttered them. 


ofii- 


Roby slowly removed the young 
cer’s hands from his throat, — for, though 
nearer death,i^s strength was as yet 
less wasted thaK^Audley’s, — and, holding 


them both in h 
looked him st 
Tianded in 
Tell me, 

, do you 
Audley 
have f 
dying 
Here, 


ter 


for a mpment, he 
while he 


}re I die, tell 
?” 

ard, and would 
^ earth but that the 
his hands so tight, 
confirmation of the vague 
been growing upon him 
stronger every day, though 
never dared '/y own it to himself. 
Oman he had chosen for his wife was 
from a cr '.-ature like this, — a rob- 
ber, a vagabond, ^a — heaven knows what ; 
and there w'..s something in her face, 
beautiful as it was, that plainly confessed 
the fatherhood. It seemed like unwar- 
rantable presumption in such as he to 
bear any relationship to one so pure and 
sacred in Audley’s eyes, and he felt as if 
he could kill the wretch for daring to be 


Ruth’s father, but his heart never once 


swerved in its allegiance to her. 

“ Yes,” he answered, snatching his 
hands from Roby’s grasp. “Yes, I do 
love her, and I will make* her my wife, 
though the devil himself should rise up 
and claim to be her filth er.” 

Roby smiled. “ It is not quite so bad 
as that,” he said, “and I don’t think in 
the end you will have any cause to regret 
your choice, though I dare say I don’t 
look like a very desirable father-in-law 
just now ; but I shall soon be out of the 
way, and you will see, when you hear 
what I have to say, that my daughter 
might easily have been worse fathered. 
I had not intended to reveal what I am 
^oing to tell you so soon. I had in- 
ll^ided to wait until I could fully unveil 
thW, hellish plot that ..has deprived my 


peril 
that 

he sawlj^ bushwhacker fall,'' #fe. -na«ie- ‘ birthright, that has stamped 

less suspjoibn which had so lon7?^ctej^<.l J :l^t .*3tother with shame and her father 
unackno\^^^^ed in his mind suddc'to^'^it^i^my, till I could make good in the 
took defini^^hape, and impressed its^,f*^v^s ail the world her right to a name 
upon him horrible distinct^f-F^ Mfia^ ntf^^^jmeed be ashamed to link with 

Rising froniyvys pallet with unnatuMT^ restore her to the rank and 


strength, he^vljhrew himself upon the 
wounded man)^^d, 'grasping his collar as 
though he wouMMrag him by main forge 
back to life, put'nis lips close to his ear, 
and demanded, almost fiercely, — 

“ Tell me before you die, tell me, - -'e 
you her father?” 


an 


woi 


re justly her own. I knew 
d her before I asked you, 
]\aS; dlwmined if I found you 
as lT4lieved you were, to resign 
fo^you^ keeping, w^hen I had fully 
blfihedher rights and could offer her 
U bride that the proudest might be 


THE MYSTERY SOLVED, 


189 


proud to claim ; but the task has fallen 
from my hands, and I must rely upon you 
to accomplish what I have only begun. 
I can but tell you my story before I die, 
and give the proofs into your hands ; then 
it will be for you to conquer justice for 
your wife. The service will be more ac- 
ceptable coming from you than from a 
father whom she has never known. She 
saw me twice, but she would have shud- 
dered to know that I was her father.” 

His voice faltered, and he pressed his 
hand to the 'gaping wound in his side as 
though in pain. Audley drew his hand- 
kerchief from his pocket, and, as he bent 
over the dying man to stanch his blood, 
narrowly escaped being trampled under- 
foot by a horseman who came charging 
upon the heels of the flying bushwhack- 
ers. The dragoon reined in his steed 
with a sudden ejaculation, and, springing 
to the ground, fairly lifted Audley from 
the earth in the ecstasy of his joy. 

The horseman was George Dalton. It 
has taken much longer to describe the 
events just narrated than they occupied 
in passing: the instant that elapsed be- 
tween the discharge that felled Roby and 
the rush of the pursuers upon their prey 
having more than sufficed for the hurried 
words that passed between Audley Mal- 
vern and the dying outlaw. The entire 
combat did not occupy more than a min- 
ute or two, the bushwhackers, fasting, 
dispirited, and wearied with their long 
nocturnal march, yielding almost with- 
out a struggle. They had not even the 
strength to fly •, and before George had 
recovered from his surprise and delight 
at finding his friend the greater part of 
them had surrendered ; and Schuyler, 
having given orders for the disposal of 
his prisoners, turned to look after his 
rebel ally. He was greatly surprised at 
beholding Malvern, but there was no 
time for explanation then. Roby’s pulse 
was failing fast, and Audley’ s thoughts 
were so occupied with him that he did 
not even stop to question how Schuyler 
and his Yankees came to be there. 

“George,” he said, in a solemn whis- 
per, Avhen the first sui^^«e of their meet- 
ing was over, “ this^wj® is dying, and he 
is Ruth’s father 

George utt^yr^d^n exclamation more 
vehement tl^^a^)^%rst upon discovering 
Audley. jwo men risen as it 

were^^^gfipP^ekd, — what would come 

that startled them all enough 
^^?Ar^n they heard it. 


CHAPTER XLIV. 

THE MYSTERY SOLVED. 

The dying man scanned the new- 
comers narrowly for a moment, and then 
requested them to sit down beside him. 

“ I am glad you are here, gentlemen,” 
he said, in a tone so out of keeping with 
the ruffianly garb he wore that the young 
men stared at each other in surprise, 
“ for I am going to tell a story that may 
have to be sworn to some day in a court 
of justice, and it will be well for Colonel 
Malvern to have creditable witnesses, 
should he ever have to go to law. Please 
listen, gentlemen, if you have patience, 
and attend well to what I am about to 
say.” Then fixing his eyes upon George, 
he added, “ I think I see before me a 
son of Judge Dalton ?” 

George nodded assent. 

“ Then you have probably heard of 
me before. My name is Mortimer Sea- 
bury.” 

Again George nodded assent. 

“You have heard of me,” continued 
Seabury, to whom we must now give his 
true name, “as a bigamist, a felon, a 
murderer, a deceiver and betrayer of the 
woman who loved me, — all which I 
pronounce a slander and a lie, and with 
my dying breath I charge Julian Ilar- 
fleur as the author of the hellish plot 
that tore me from my lawful wife and 
cast a stigma of shame on the birth of 
my child.” 

He raised himself partially as he 
spoke, and shook his clinched fist in the 
energy of his passion ; .but the violence 
of the motion proved too much for his 
failing strength, and he sank back to the 
earth in a fainting condition. When he 
revived, his voice was feebler, but his 
mind as clear as before. 

“ I must not waste my breath in vain 
invectives now,” he said, “ for my time 
is short, and I have much to say before I 
go. Come nearer. Colonel Malvern, so 
that if my voice begins to fail you may 
catch' the last whisper, for if you love 
my daughter, every word I am going to 
speak will be of vital interest to you. 
Raise my head a little, and give me some 
water ; I want to last long enough to tell 
my story, if I can.” 

They did as he requested, mingling 
brandy with the water, and stanched as 
well as they could the stream of blood 
that issued from his side. The stimulant 
seemed beneficial, for his voice was 
stronger when he resumed. 


190 


A FAMILY SECRET. 


^‘ITave you ever heard,” he inquired, 
addressing; himself to Audley, “ of a 
wealthy family named Southmate who 
once lived on the estate adjoining San- 
downe? One of their old servants, 
named Chloe, still lives there, supported 
Mr. Bruen’s generosity.” 

Audley replied that he had heard some- 
thing of the himily in connection with 
the old servant in question, and her re- 
markable fidelity to it. 

“ I am a descendant of that same 
house,” continued Seabury. “They all 
squandered their money and went to the 
dogs long before I was born, and one of 
the daughters scandalized society by tak- 
ing to the stage for a living. This was 
Buth Southmate, my mother. She was 
a great beauty and a superb musician, 
and created considerable excitement in 
some of the capitals of Europe. My 
father, then an idle young man of 
fashion, the son of a respectable English 
country gentleman, became deeply enam- 
ored of her, and, as she was too virtuous 
to be approached in any other way, made 
her an offer of marriage. Ilis father was 
furious, and threatened to disinherit the 
young man if his attentions to the actress 
did not cease immediately. My mother 
was too generous a woman to permit her 
lover to sacrifice himself for her sake, 
and, though fiir from regarding him with 
indifference, tried‘ every means to cause 
him to desist from his suit; but in vain. 
He followed her all over Europe, and in 
answer to her remonstrances had a mag- 
nificent gem, that had been an heir-loom 
in his family for generations, set in a 
ring with a reference to the answer her 
scriptural namesake had given Naomi 
engraved on the rim, and this he flung 
to her one night in Vienna, when she 
had sung with great dclat. You have 
seen the same on my daughter’s hand. 

“ He was as good as his word, and 
never desisted from ‘following after her’ 
till she had consented to marry him. My 
grandfather was as good as his word, tog, 
for he immediately disinherited my father, 
and settled his estate, which was not en- 
tailed, upon his second son, an exemplary 
young man who never got into scrapes 
with actresses. 

“ My father, who, like most heirs pre- 
sumptive to large fortunes, had been 
reared with extravagant tastes and no 
business habits, soon ran through with 
the little his wife had saved from her 
earnings and then died, leaving her a 
handsome young widow with one child, — 
the vagabond you see before you. She 


had many offers, and finally disposed of 
herself to a rich India merchant, on con- 
dition that he would educate her boy and 
give him a start in life. She died when 
I was about sixteen, but my step-father, 
an honorable, kind-hearted old gentleman, 
whom I have every reason to remember 
with gratitude and affection, kept his 
promise to her faithfully. After com- 
pleting my course at the University of 
Oxford, I was sent, at my own desire, to 
try my fortune in the New World^ my 
mother having early inspired me with 
her own predilections for her native 
country. Mr. Mulford — this was my 
step-father’s name — had some influence 
with the ministry then in power, and ob- 
tained for me an under-secretaryship in 
the British Legation at Washington. 
There I met Nettie Bruen, and had the 
audacity to raise my eyes to the belle and 
star of the republican court, with what 
result you all know. She was a glorious 
woman, Nettie was: neither fortune nor 
flattery could spoil her, and ambition, 
that foul ulcer in most women’s hearts, 
never ate away the noble instincts of hers. 

“ It is needless to tell how her family 
opposed her choice of the poor under- 
secretary, how her father did his best to 
marry her to a cold-blooded rival, and 
how she remained true to her own heart 
through it all, and could neither be scared 
nor coaxed into forsaking me, — poor 
Nettie !” 

His voice trembled and his eyes grew 
dim with tears as he uttered the name, 
but he brushed them quickly away and 
resumed his story. 

“ She was spirited as well as true, and 
her father was at length obliged to con- 
sent to our union, for she told him plainly 
that if he did not, she would marry me 
without his permission. Perhaps I was 
wrong to take advantage of her affection, 
but I loved her, and I did it ; and, may 
God forgive me, if I were to live my life 
over, I’d do the same again. 

“ It is useless to tell how my father-in- 
law and I quarreled. He was arrogant, 
I unforbearingjand suffice it to say that 
one day he usS^^uch language to me 
that I could no lSi||^ without sacrificing 
my self-respect, maS^in any connection 
with him ; so I resofl|||||h^ break off at 
once completely I was 

always of a roving,'I^^^^B|^disposi- 
tion, and determinea^|||^^^^B|Dvtune 
anew in the then anffMJJ^^fcored 
region of the Far ^Yest. Netti^W^fcj^ 
remonstrance ; she would have follmW% 
me to the ends of the earth, but she wa» 


THE MYSTERY SOLVED, 


191 


not just then in a situation to stand the 
fatigue of a long journey or the hardships 
of pioneer life, so I consented to leave her 
behind till her child should be born, and 
then, when I had prepared her a home on 
the Pacific, I was to return and carry her 
with me. But before the home was ready 
came the news, the false news, as I now 
know it to have been, that has blasted 
my whole life. A letter in the hand- 
writing of Nettie’s father, and signed 
w’ith his name, informed me that my wife 
had died in giving birth to an infant 
which had survived the mother but a few 
hours. The letter was very curt, and 
couched in language which intimated 
plainly enough the writer’s desire that 
this should be the end of all communi- 
cation between us, and of course I never 
troubled him, even with an answer to his 
letter. I received at the same time a 
copy of the South Ambury ‘ Pioneer’ an- 
nouncing my wife's death, with appro- 
priate obituary notices ; and also my 
mother’s ring, which I had given her 
with the injunction never to part with it, 
was returned to me. 

“ I had now, unfortunately, no motive 
for revisiting Nettie’s native home. It 
would have been unpleasant to come in 
contact with her family and painful to 
revive old associations, so I remained in 
the West a year or two, leading a rest- 
less, unsettled, miserable life, and then 
returned to England, which I left again 
in a few months for the Far East, to over- 
look some business connected with my 
step-father’s house. I remained in India 
for twelve years, and conducted Mr. 
Mulford’s affairs so much to his satisfac- 
tion that, having no children of his own, 
he left me, when he died, the bulk of 
his fortune, some five hundred thousand 
pounds sterling. This property, consid- 
erably augmented, is still in my pos- 
session, and will be my daughter’s 
portion when she marries. I am grati- 
fied,” he continued, fixing his eyes upon 
Malvern, with a bright smile, “ to know 
that it is not to be the prey of a designing 
fortune-hunter, but the merited reward 
of a man Avho has shown himself capable 
of a noble and disinterested affection.” 

Audley remembered a certain little 
episode that had preceded his declara- 
tion to Ruth that made the praises of his 
prospective father-law seem like a satire, 
lie felt decidedly “ sneaky,” as the school- 
boys say, and for a moment was half 
inclined to regret that he was to marry 
an heiress after all, though it is but fair 
to add he soon got over that folly. 


“All business relating to my prop- 
erty,” continued Seabury, “ can easily 
be settled by reference to my lawyers, 
How & Pringle, 162 Chancery Lane, 
London, and the necessary papers will 
be found in a trunk I have left at Mr. 
Stockdale’s warehouse in South Ambury, 
to be delivered to the order of Richard 
Brown. You see,” he added, with a 
feeble laugh, “ I have as many aliases as 
if I really were the vagabond I appear. 

“ And now, let me explain how 1 came 
to seem what you see me, for there we 
touch the main thing I have to reveal. 
Wet my lips again and stop that flow of 
blood from my side if you can. I am 
growing weaker very fast, but I must 
live long enough to finish my story ; I 
must do justice to my child before I 
die.” 

They complied with his request, and 
he resumed, — 

“ After coming into possession of my 
fortune, I wandered about over Europe 
and the East, as restless and unhappy as 
ever; and when I had exhausted the 
Old World, seeking rest and finding 
none, I turned to the wilds of the New. 
I traveled over the greater part of South 
America, then wandered on to the West 
Indies, andfrom there, about six months 
ago, crossed over to New Orleans. The 
famous cantatrice Sonata arrived there 
about the same time, and I, of course, 
went to hear her. Judge of my feelings, 
when the prima-donna stepped upon the 
stage, at beholding a woman so like my 
wife that my heart stood still as though 
I had seen her spirit. Not only were 
form and feature the same, but every 
movement was my wife’s, and that pecu- 
liar carriage of the head, like the Yenus 
of Milo, recalled Nettie so vividly that I 
seemed to have lost my senses. I was 
awakened from this semi-stupor by the 
first notes that fell from the songstress’s 
lips, and lo ! a new marvel : it was as if 
my mother’s voice had sounded from the 
grave. The notes were stronger, — clearer, 
if possible, even more silvery and bell- 
like, but yet so much the same, that I 
could fancy it was my mother^s voice 
after she had been glorified into one of 
the angelic choir. 

“ When the first song was ended, the 
whole audience joined in a burst of rap- 
turous applause, and I, moved by an im- 
pulse I could not explain nor yet resist, 
tore from my finger the ring that had 
been my mother’s and flung it at her 
feet. I saw her pick it up and smilingly 
place it on her own finger, and was con- 


192 


A FAMILY SECRET, 


tent. It had been my mother’s betrothal 
ring, and my wife’s, and ought to have 
been a sacred relic to me, yet the hand 
of that stranger seemed, I knew not 
why, the fittest place for it. May it 
never be removed from her finger till 
she bids some brave son of her own 
place it on the hand of his bride ! 

“ The rest of the performance was all 
a dream to me. I think the piece was 
‘La Fille du Regiment.’ I heard the 
people applauding, I saw the actors mov- 
ing about upon the stage, but it was all 
in some far-oflP, fairy country ; in all that 
crowded house there was but one real 
figure to me. 

“At the close of the opera, I rushed 
behind the scenes with the crowd that 
went to offer their felicitations to the 
triumphant queen of song. I felt my- 
self, somehow, irresistibly drawn towards 
this beautiful actress, and I could not let 
her go out of my sight till I had spoken 
to her, till I had asked her who and what 
she was. On reaching the green-room, 
however, I found that she had stolen 
away without a word to any one ; and 
then a rumor began to spread that this 
glorious songstress was not Sonata at all, 
but an unknown musician from the city 
who had been secretly engaged to take her 
place, the real Sonata being confined to her 
bed by a sudden illness. I made inquiries 
in every direction, but my utmost impor- 
tunity could only elicit that any attempt 
to discover the lady would be fruitless, 
as she was to leave the city that very 
night, by flag of truce, for some point 
within the Confederate lines, nobody 
knew where. Drawn along by an immu- 
table destiny, I prepared immediately for 
departure, and set out to follow her next 
day. I would have gone that very night 
but for the difficulty of procuring a pass- 
port, which delayed me several hours, 
feeing an experienced traveler, I soon 
came upon the trail of the songstress, and 
followed secretly, but never addressed 
her, nor even learned her name till at a 
little station by the way I, with a strange 
thrill, heard you address her as Miss 
Ilarfleur.” 

He fixed his eyes upon Audley as he 
spoke, and the young man then recog- 
nized for the first time in the dying bush- 
whacker the man whose conduct had 
attracted his notice when he met Ruth 
for the second time at Mill Creek Junc- 
tion. 

“You are startled, I see,” said Sea- 
bury, noting the expression of his face, 
“ but nothing to what' I was when those 


words fell from your lips. Ilarfleur was 
the name of a man who had tried to 
stand betAveen me and Nettie, a man 
whom I had ahvays distrusted, and to 
whom she herself felt an invincible re- 
pugnance, but whom it was her fiither’s 
most ardent desire that she should wed. 
It was startling that one so like my wife 
should bear his name •, and Avhile I was 
asking myself if this could be a mere 
chance I heard her tell you, in that tone 
so like my mother’s, that she was on her 
way to oouth Ambury, near which her 
family resided, — and the very spot where 
Nettie’s family and the man named Ilar- 
fleur had always lived. The mystery 
was deepening. I folloAved to South 
Ambury ; you saw me on the journey, 
but little guessed my object. 

“ On account of the old quarrel with 
my wdfe’s family, I determined not to 
make myself knoAvn. It had been so 
long since I was in the country that there 
was not much danger of my being recog- 
nized, but the better to secure my incog- 
nifo ^ — which I had no idea then of carry- 
ing to the point I have been compelled 
by circumstances to do, — I made some 
changes in my dress before appearing on 
the streets of South Ambury, and as- 
sumed the speech and manners of your 
‘ crackers,’ with which I had become 
familiar during my former residence in 
the country. I inherit a talent for acting 
from my mother, and have often amused 
myself in my wanderings by personating 
different characters, thus bringing myself 
into relation with all classes of people, 
and even now I Avas half pleased with the 
fun of my experiment, little dreaming 
what a serious matter my acting would 
become before I was done with it. 

“The first person I accosted was a fel- 
low named Jim Chance, whom I remem- 
bered as a hanger-on of the Bruens in 
former days. If he is among your pris- 
oners, captain,” turning to Schuyler, “I 
beg that you will not let any harm come 
to "the poor deAul ; he ain’t worth the 
poAvder it Avould take to kill him, and the 
miserable boon of a starveling existence 
like his is little enough rcAvard for the 
assistance he unconsciously rendered me 
in unveiling a damnable conspiracy.” 

Schuyler, who had become deeply in- 
terested in the dying man’s history, prom- 
ised that not a hair of Jim’s valuable 
head should be harmed ; and Ave may as 
well state here, once and for all, that that 
useful member of society was soon re- 
stored to the bosom of his family, and dis- 
miss him forever from these pages. 


THE MYSTERY SOLVED, 


193 ^ 


^‘Almost the first W(^ds Jim Chance 
dropped,’’ continued Seabury, turning 
again towards Audley, to whom his nar- 
rative was mainly addressed, was a 
passing allusion to the death of my wife, 
as having occurred just fifteen years ago, 
— eight years after the time at which I 
had been apprised of it. I could hardly 
believe my ears. I questioned him over 
and over again, thinking he must be mis- 
taken in his dates, but he stood to his 
figures so persistently that I was forced 
to regard the matter as worthy of further 
investigation. I had in my pocket-book 
the slip cut from the newspaper that had 
been sent me announcing Nettie’s death, 
and my first act was to seek for a paper 
of the same date among the old files at 
the ‘ Reporter’ office and compare the 
two. While turning over the dusty sheets, 
picture my amazement at finding, in a 
number four years later than the one I 
had received with the notice of my wife’s 
death, an announcement of the marriage 
of Antoinette, daughter of Randolph 
Bruen, to Julian Ilarflcur! 

“ Continuing my search, I came at last 
to a paper of the same date as my slip, 
and found it to contain nothing whatever 
in regard to Nettie. I then remembered 
that Julian Harfleur was editor of the 
South Ambury newspaper in those days, 
and the thought occurred to me that he 
might have had one copy printed unlike 
the rest, to serve a special purpose. 

It was clear to me now that I had 
been the victim of a diabolical conspiracy. 
There was the ring I had given Nettie to 
keep forever sent back to me long before 
she died; there was her father’s letter in 
his own hiuid, conveying to me a lie 
blacker than Satan himself ever begot, — 
yet it was hard, even in the face of all 
these things,' to believe that that letter 
was not a forgery. Randolph Bruen was 
an arrogant, overbearing man, but it was 
hard to reconcile a baseness like that with 
my knowledge of his character ; and then, 
that Nettie should have been a party to 
such wickedness ! Oh, my God ! how could 
I believe that I” 

“ Do not believe it,” whispered Audley, 
deeply moved. “ That letter was a for- 
gery ; and as for your wife, she was her- 
self deceived and imposed upon. They 
persuaded her that you were dead, and 
would have made her believe that you 
were false and wicked besides, but she 
was true to you, and loved you to the end, 
and died of a broken heart at last, because 
they forced her to marry your rival.” 

“ Yes, yes ; I learned all that after- 


wards,” said the dying man, eagerly. 

“ In my secret prowlings around her old 
home I heard it all ; how I had been de- 
famed and artfully confounded with a 
notorious desperado who, among his many 
aliases, had once happened to light upon 
the name of Seabury. I heard of poor 
Nettie’s faithful, broken heart; of my 
banished and abandoned child. May God 
forgive the men who could so harden 
their hearts against their own • flesh and 
blood ! I w^ould never have believed it in 
the nature of George and Randolph Bruen 
to do the like of this, and it must have 
been a subtle fiend that tempted them to 
it.’’ 

“ You do those gentlemen injustice,” 
said Audley. “ They w^ere not tempted, 
but deceived ; they were victims of the 
plot like yourself — not accomplices. Sor- 
row and shame hurried Randolph Bruen 
to the grave ; and his open-hearted, un- 
suspecting brother has been blinded andi 
imposed upon all his life by Julian Har- 
fleur.” 

‘‘Are you sure of that?” asked Sea- 
bury, with a brightening countenance. 

“ Perfectly sure.” 

“ Then I can die with a lighter heart.- 
George Bruen wms my friend in days gone 
by, and he was always a frank, generous, 
noble fellow, — it went hard with me to- 
believe him capable of treachery. Julian. 
Harfleur was an able villain to accomplish' 
all this alone. 

“ He had an accomplice,” said Audley, 
recalling his interview with the pious 
^neas, “ but not among your wife’s kin- 
dred. Did you ever hear the name of 
Tadpole ?” 

“ Yes ; a canting, whining, sanctified 
devil, — Nehemiah Tadpole. He was a^ 
classmate of Harfleur’ s at Cambridge,, 
and was engaged, on his recommendation^ 
to teach the youth of South Ambury.” 

“ And he was also employed by Mr. 
Bruen, upon Julian Harfleur’s recom- 
mendation, as his confidential agent in 
investigating the reports concerningy our 
character and end ; and to his pious 
hands your innocent child was consigned, 
after her mother’s death, to be murdered 
by ill-treatment. He has a worthy son 
called ^neas, who has been crammed 
with Mr. Harfleur’s family secrets, and 
sent all the way from Boston to levy black- 
mail upon him. By the light of your 
revelation I am enabled to interpret many 
things that only filled me with doubt and 
perplexity before. I see through the 
whole mystery at last, and the feeble 
glimmerings I had have now become a 


194 


A FAMILY SECRET. 


perpect blaze of light, revealing all the 
windings of this labyrinth of fraud and 
guilt, — but don’t let me interrupt; *go on 
with your story. 

‘‘ There is little more to tell,” answered 
Seabury, in a voice so feeble that they 
feared lest he should not be able to finish. 
“ I wandered about the neighborhood a 
few days, in disguise, picking up all the 
information I could get, and one day was 
almost tempted into betraying myself to 
lluth, when I chanced to meet her alone 
at her mother’s grave. Poor child! she 
was terribly frightened when she saw me 
rise up from among the tombs, where I 
had hid myself on hearing her enter the 
church-yard ; but I could not resist the 
impulse that prompted me once more to 
look my daughter in the face ; and that 
look unnerved me so, that if it had not 
been for my dread of seeing her sicken 
with horror at the sight of such a father, 
I would have told her all. 

“ One person had my secret from the 
first, and kept it faithfully, — old Chloe, 
my grandfather’s slave, and my mother’s 
nurse. It was under her roof that I 
oftenest found shelter during my secret 
prowlings. The old creature had been 
warmly attached to me during my short 
residence in the country, more than 
twenty years before, and she recognized 
me again at a glance, in spite of the 
changes of time and my villainous dis- 
guise. It is too late now for me to re- 
ward her fidelity ; but I charge you, with 
my dying breath, to remember her when 
I am gone. 

“ The eye of hate is as keen as the eye 
of love, and Julian Harfleur, too, knew 
me the moment his glance rested upon 
me. He was the only person, besides the 
old negro, that ever recognized me spon- 
taneously. It was on a festal occasion ; 
he singled me out among a crowd, and in 
that look he devoted me to destruction. 
You know all that, for you were there, 
and your eloquence saved my life, when 
his insidious malice would have turned 
the violence of the mob he raised against 
me. I felt that it would be useless to de- 
nounce him then, believing, as I did, that 
Nettie’s family were in the conspiracy 
with him ; and what would the word of a 
vagabond like me avail against honor- 
able gentlemen like George Bruen and 
Julian Harfleur? I had no means at 
hand of proving my identity, and of 
course it would not suit their purpose to 
acknowledge it. I realized, as soon as I 
detected the conspiracy, that in conceal- 
ment lay my only safety while I remained 


in a neighborhqpd where there were so 
many interested in getting rid of me. 
The discovery I had made being totally 
unexpected, I was not provided with many 
important proofs I could produce bearing 
upon my cause, nor had 1 competent wit- 
nesses at hand. It was my intention to 
collect all the information I could get, 
then to slip out of the country as silently 
as I had slipped into it, apply to the 
British minister at Washington for pass- 
ports and protection, take the necessary 
measures for establishing my identity, 
and then, when all my plans were per- 
fected, to return as speedily as possible 
and unveil the villainous fraud. I be- 
lieved that there would be a powerful 
combination against me, and meant to 
take powerful measures to defeat it. 

“But all my plans were overthrown 
when Julian Harfleur s evil eye rested 
upon me, and I was suddenly taken at a 
disadvantage, and unawares, with no 
chance at all of making good my cause 
before the violent and prejudiced mob 
who were to be my judges. Still, I was 
not going to die tamely, without an effort 
to vindicate the right, — my right and my 
child’s. I held my peace till the last 
moment, if perchance the necessity of 
pleading my cause against such odds 
might be spared me ; but I was not 
going to die silent, and was just prepar- 
ing to open my lips when George Bruen, 
like the brave, honest man that he always 
was, stood up and dared to speak for jus- 
tice and mercy, though he little knew in 
whose behalf he was pleading. Then 
you .pame, with your soldierly speech, 
and saved me. You know the rest. On 
being ordered to Andersonville, I obtained 
permission to write to General Brocken- 
borough, with whom I had formed an 
intimacy in some of my wanderings, and 
requested him to procure my release ; but 
before a reply could reach me I found an 
opportunity of making my escape, and 
seized it. It was my intention then to 
make my way to the Yankee lines, thence 
to Washington, secure the protection of 
our minister there, and then carry out 
my original plan ; but I found, on ac- 
count of the bad company into which I 
had fallen, that it would be hard to get 
myself received in a respectable capacity 
anywhere. When I reflected, too, that 
Julian Harfleur, now fully sensible of 
his danger, had my daughter still in his 
power, — when I remembered what a 
dark, unscrupulous man he was, it 
seemed too long to wait. I tried once to 
surrender myself to you. Do you re- 


GEORGE DALTON HARDENS HIS HEART 


195 


member that evening when I met yon on 
the hillside with the nineteen brave men 
whom you refused to receive ? I was 
eager then to tell you everything, and 
implore your assistance, but was foiled, 
— foiled as I have been at every turn in 
this maze of wickedness ; and lastly, to 
ruin all, some of my scoundrels went 
depredating upon the Yankee outposts, 
and brought them upon my heels, too, 
and here I am, dying, with my task 
half done, — dying, without having ever 
embraced my child. I bequeath the 
work of justification to your hf|.nds. You 
will find a small pocket-book with papers 
on my person. There are others in my 
trunk at South Ambury, and for the rest, 
you must consult with my attorney in 
London. Bury me by Nettie’s side, and 

tell Ruth — tell my — child, that ” 

He threw up his hands with a sudden 
convulsive quiver, the last words died 
aAvay in a long gasp, and he never spoke 
again. 


CHAPTER XLV. 

GEORGE DALTON HARDENS HIS HEART. 

It was on Easter-Sunday that the news 
of George Dalton’s death was brought to 
South Ambury. There was a delicate 
perfume of wild azaleas pervading the 
little Gothic church that stood at the en- 
trance of the town, and the soft vernal 
breezes played around the flower-laden 
altar, wafting its sweet incense over the 
heads of the kneeling congregation. Their 
bishop, an exile from his own home, was 
in the chancel. He had just pronounced 
the Declaration of Absolution, and the 
penitents were still kneeling with heads 
reverently bowed, when a messenger 
entered the church, and, advancing on 
tip-toe down the aisle, paused at Mr. 
Stockdale’s pew and handed him a folded 
slip of paper. The cotton-factor rose from 
his knees, crept noiselessly out of the sa- 
cred building, and, mounting his horse, 
hurried away to Sandowne, the bearer of 
tidings that were destined to change the 
Easter cheer of that stricken household 
into more than Lenten sadness. 

It was a custom for all the neighbor- 
hood to meet at Sandowne on Easter- 
Sunday for a grand dinner-party. Mr. 
Bruen’s Easter-dinner was as much a part 
of his religion as the Nicene Creed or the 
Apostolic Succession, but out of regard 


for Audley Malvern’s friends the usual 
festivities were omitted on the present 
occasion, and the inmates of the White 
House were merely sent for to dine en 
famille at Sandowne. 

Julia was standing behind Mr. Bruen’s 
chair when the cotton-factor arrived, and 
read over his shoulder the slip of manu- 
script which the latter placed in his hand. 
She betrayed no sign of emotion, her color 
did not change, her hand did not tremble, 
as she passed the missive silently from the 
old gentleman to Ruth, upon whom, by 
the tacit consent of all, seemed to devolve 
the task of breaking the news to George’s 
mother. Ruth felt almost angry with 
Julia for the strange want of feeling she 
displa^^ed, but if she could have seen her 
that night, when no eye but God’s was 
upon her, wearing out the long watches 
in anguish and in tears, — if she could have 
seen her pacing wildly up and down her 
solitary chamber, wringing her hands and 
tearing her hair in a perfect frenzy of 
misery and despair, she would have felt 
that the heart alone knoweth its own bit- 
terness. 

Julia had forfeited the right to weep 
for George before the world, but in the 
loneliness of night, when only the stars 
of heaven and the pitying angels were 
there to see, she poured out the bitterness 
of her soul in a torrent of grief that was 
fast exhausting the forces of her nature. 
At the end of one short week she Avas so 
changed that her best friend would never 
have recognized her. Her cheeks were 
hollow and sunken, while her wasted 
features made her eyes seem fearfully 
large and bright, like those of a maniac. 
She seemed to have grown ten years older 
in as many days, and even in her beau- 
tiful flaxen hair scattered threads of 
silver began to show themselves. She 
never mentioned George’s name, she 
never confessed her suffering, but Ruth 
divined her secret, and she felt at last, 
when she gazed on Julia’s AA'recked and 
ruined beauty, that there were depths of 
human bitterness which her own heart 
had never probed. 

Deep as was Ruth’s distress for her 
own lover, sharp as was her grief for the 
friend who was dear to her as a brother, 
it was unembittered by the horror of re- 
morse ; she had not, like Julia, the bur- 
den of a soul’s destruction on her con- 
science. She realized what an awful 
thing it was for George to be summoned 
so suddenly in the midst of his headlong 
career before that awful tribunal from 
which there is no appeal ; but even in 


196 


A FAMILY SECRET. 


this terrible thought her religion afforded 
her a sweet source of consolation, in that 
prayer for the dead which is one of the 
most beautiful and comforting doctrines 
of the faith she professed. Julia had not 
even the ordinary aids to resignation 
and submission that every form of Chris- 
tianity, even the sternest and most barren, 
can bestow. She gave her adherence to 
the faith of the family just as she did to 
its social or its political creed, and believed 
in it just as she did in the Malvern pedi- 
gree or the institution of slavery, — be- 
cause she had been taught to do so. 

With Ruth, on the contrary, religion 
was almost a passion. All that she 
had ever known of good centred in the 
Church, and the sacred memories of her 
childhood all clustered round the altar as 
those of other people around their fire- 
sides. The only light that dawned upon 
her life’s desolate morning had streamed 
from the altar; the only home that 
opened its doors to her was the convent ; 
the only mother she had known, the 
Church. The unhappy experiences of 
her childhood may have rendered her 
somewhat intolerant of other creeds than 
her own ; but perhaps after all a little 
sprinkling of fanaticism or enthusiasm, 
whatever you choose to call it, — for 
fixnaticism is merely an excess of enthu- 
siasm, — is essential, if not to the life, at 
least to the warmth and vigor of religion. 
It is better to believe too much than too 
little, to be too hot than too cold; and 
your fanatics and enthusiasts, if not the 
wisest and most agreeable Christians, are 
certainly the most earnest and devout. 
Strong convictions are necessarily accom- 
panied with some degree of intolerance, 
and a broad liberality is very apt to pro- 
ceed from either doubt or indifference. 
In this age of daring inquiry and pitiless 
deduction, the man is to be envied who 
can have implicit faith in anything; who 
can cherish even an honest error, and be- 
lieve in it, and fight for it, and die for it, 
undisturbed by the demon of doubt that 
has destroyed the peace of so many 
hearts. Yes, faith in anything, even in 
a dream, is better than this black gulf of 
doubt and uncertainty towards which the 
human mind seems inevitably drifting. 
Faith is the one thing better than love 
that God has given to mortals, and until 
faith is lost no heart can be utterly deso- 
late and miserable. Ruth possessed this 
treasure, this pearl of great price ; and, 
though she, too, had lost all that earth 
held dear for her, yet was she richer than 
Julia by all that heaven contains. 


As soon as the bishop heard the dread- 
ful news about George Dalton, he hastened 
to offer what consolation he could to the 
afflicted family. A warm personal friend- 
ship had alTvays existed between him and 
old George Bruen, notwithstanding the 
startling diversity in their characters, 
and Mrs. Dalton was a near relation of 
his own. 

Never was there a man so honored by 
people of all creeds, and so ardently loved 
by his own, as that good old bishop. AVith 
a majesty of person that would have struck 
awe into kings, that holy, apostolic man 
united a suavity and gentleness that drew 
the most timid to his side. Possessed of 
talents and attainments that made him 
the peer of the greatest and wisest of 
earth, he knew how to adapt himself to 
the unlearned and ignorant as well, and 
in the same breath could make exalted 
sinners tremble and lowly ones weep. 
Heir by birthright to a proud name and 
lofty station in life, courted, flattered, 
sought after by the great, yet, like the 
Master he served, he did not scorn to be 
called the friend of publicans and sinners. 
That imposing majesty of person, which 
in another man would have overawed you 
by its grandeur, was softened in him by 
an exquisite tenderness of manner that 
lured even little children to play about 
his knees as about a beloved grandfather. 

The bishop spent a week at Sandowne, 
and was to officiate on Sunday at the 
family chapel of St. Mary's. Julia was 
not fond of church-going as a general 
thing, but she felt within her now a need 
of something that she knew not where to 
find, and some hidden instinct told her 
the bishop was the man to point the way 
to what she wanted. Julia was not a 
person to be reached by humble means ; 
and if a simple parish priest had stood in 
the bishop’s place and brought her the 
sell-same message from heaven, his words, 
it is to be feared, would have fallen upon 
her ear unheeded. Her haughty nature, 
even in its ruin, could be impressed only 
by what was lofty and imposing, and 
there was something about the very looks 
of the grand old bishop that seemed to 
declare him the ambassador of heaven. 
There are some natures that seem to 
require the aid of an august ritual and 
grand symbolism to keep alive within 
them that faith which is the evidence of 
things not seen, and their devotion would 
starve on the meagre fare that simpler 
souls find all-sufficient for their needs. 
Julia’s love of pomp and splendor ex- 
tended itself even to the accessories of 


f 


GEORGE DALTON HARDENS HIS HEART 


197 


her religion. She had little regard for 
“ the day of small things,’* and it seemed 
as if heaven, in pity for her very weak- 
ness, had sent he-r in her hour of need the 
only messenger whose voice she would be 
likely to heed. 

If the bishop had framed his sermon 
that Sunday with especial reference to 
Julia, it could not have suited her case 
more exactly, with the advantage of lack- 
ing the personality that an expressly- 
framed discourse is almost sure to have. 
Ilis text was from the lifty-lifth Psalm : 
“Oh that I had wings like a dove! for 
then would I fly away, and be at rest.” 

Julia listened attentively, and kept her 
face closely veiled, that no one might see 
the copious tears stealing down her cheeks. 
At the close of the last prayer, she rose 
reluctantly, cast a wistful look towards 
the altar, wavered an instant, then turned 
and followed the retreating footsteps of 
those who, like herself, felt unworthy to 
pick up even the crumbs that fell from 
the Master’s table. 

After service, the bishop accompanied 
Mr. and Mrs. Bruen to the White House, 
where they were all to dine. Being an 
old man, the exertion of preaching was 
fatiguing to him, and he retired to his 
chamber awhile before dinner to refresh 
himself-, but he had scarcely closed the 
door, when a nervous rap was heard out- 
side, and, upon his invitation to come in, 
Julia Malvern entered the room. The 
bishop was surprised, but received her 
with a pleasant smile. 

‘‘ Come, my daughter,” he repeated, 
seeing her waver on the threshold ; and, 
advancing to meet her, he caught her by 
both hands, in his kind, fatherly way, 
and placed her on a chair at his side. 
Though Julia was a comparative stran- 
ger, there was something about her that 
excited his interest, and he felt a desire 
to know her more intimately. 

“And now,” he continued, when they 
were seated, “ tell me all about it, for I 
see by your face that something lies heavy 
on your heart. What do you want with 
your old bishop?” 

“I want many things,” cried Julia, 
feeling all reserve melt away before the 
irresistible charm of his manner -, “ I 
want counsel and help and consolation ; 
I want everything that wisdom and good- 
ness can give to one blind and wretched 
and guilty. Oli, George ! George ! it was 
I that blasted and ruined his life ! it was 
I that gave the rein to his vices and sent 
him unprepared into eternity.” 

At the mention of George’s name the 


good bishop heaved an involuntary sigh. 
None knew better than he the noble capa- 
bilities of the young man’s nature, and 
none deplored more deeply the wreck he 
had made of them. He had christened 
George when a baby ; he had been the 
playmate of his father in boyhood; and, 
even without these claims upon his friend- 
ship, George Dalton was a man whom no 
one that knew him could ever regard with 
indilTerence. Julia’s words awakened a 
train of sad reflections in the old bishop’s 
mind, and he murmured, as if speaking 
to himself, — 

“ Poor George ! it is a fearful thing for 
a human soul to be called so suddenly 
into the presence of its Maker.” 

The words of the bishop pierced like 
an arrow into Julia’s soul, and wrung 
from her an involuntary cry. The burden 
of her anguish had at last become too 
great for her to bear ; and in proportion 
to the rigidity of the restraint which she 
had imposed upon her feelings was the 
violence of the outburst, when at last they 
passed beyond her control. She had no 
longer any command over herself; and 
the grief and remorse that had preyed on 
her heart so long in secret broke forth 
all at once in a wild burst of sobs and 
self-accusation. Flinging herself at the 
bishop’s feet and clasping his knees, she 
frantically echoed his words, — 

“ Fearful to be called so suddenly ! 
yes, fearful ! but to me, not to him I not 
to him ! It was I that made him what he 
was ; let all his sins rest upon my head. 
Oh, say, good bishop, that the vengeance 
of heaven will fall upon me, not upon 
him! I loved him, and would gladly 
give my own soul to save him. Ask your 
God to take me, and leave him alone, if I 
am not unworthy even to perish in his 
stead.” 

The bishop was shocked at her words. 

“My daughter,” he said, in a gentle 
but reproving voice, “ you take too much 
upon you in charging yourself with the 
condemnation of a soul. I know not 
what wrong you may have committed 
towards the dead, but judgment be- 
longeth to God alone ; and all that you 
can do now is to trust in his goodness 
and pray that he will have mercy on your 
soul and give you peace.” 

“ Peace !” she cried, wildly ; “ there will 
never be peace for me again ; but say, oh, 
say, that there is eternal mercy for him! 
He was so noble, so generous, so good, 
until he knew me ; my cursed ambition 
has ruined all. He lavished upon me all 
the love of his great and noble nature, 


198 


A FAMILY SECRET. 


and I returned him only the falsehood 
and selfishness of mine. He was so loyal, 
so true, so confiding in his affection ; I 
so mean, so selfish, so worldly in mine. 
I gave up love for ambition, happiness 
for pride, a noble heart for corruptible 
gold ; and here I am in my turn forsaken 
by pride, humbled and wretched, and 
barren of every joy. It would not matter 
for me ; I deserve no better ; but when I 
wrecked his happiness I ruine(^ his soul 
and wrecked him for all eternity. He 
told me so the last time we ever met ; his 
last Avords to me were words of bitter 
reproach, — curses that have never been 
recalled ; — and now he has gone forever, 
gone, I know not where, and his curse 
still rests upon my head. And yet, oh, 
George !” raising her eyes to heaven and 
speaking like one in a delirium, “ I have 
loved you always; loved you! oh, you 
will never know how Avell I and will love 
you to the end, though you meet me with 
curses before the judgment-seat of God !” 

The bishop saAV that she was hardly 
accountable for what she said. He raised 
her gently from the floor, and, replacing 
her on the chair from which she had 
slidden, proceeded to give such words of 
counsel and comfort as she needed. It 
was beautiful to see the stately old man, 
whoso presence would have added gran- 
deur to an assembly of kings, lending 
himself with the simplicity of a woman 
to the task of comforting a heart-broken 
girl Avho had lost her lover. 

“ None of us can say, my child,” he 
ansAvered, “ hoAA' the mercy of God may 
deal with sinners ; and we can ahvays 
trust in his goodness. No one can tell 
what change may have come over George 
at the last ; and the Avords you deplore so 
bitterly may have been recalled wdth his 
dying breath. But after all, you must 
remember, my daughter, that whatever 
AAU'ong we may liaA^e committed against 
our felloAA^-creatures always involves an- 
other and a greater wrong against him 
who has said, ‘ Thou shalt love thy neigh- 
bor as thyself.’ George Dalton has gone 
where tears and remorse are alike un- 
availing ; but there is another whose heart 
is always open to the cry of the penitent, 
and it is only in making peace with your 
God that you can hope for peace to your 
soul.” 

He led her on gently to think and speak 
of higher themes than Julia’s darkened 
soul had ever dwelt upon before, and 
AA'hen she left him the seed was sown in 
her heart, though she knew it not, that 
was destined soon to blossom into life 


and give to her character the only grace 
it needed, — the grace without which all 
others are barren and void. 

There is a stage of misery that shrinks 
from human gaze as stealthily as guilt 
itself, and Julia felt on leaAung the 
bishop’s presence that she could not bear 
the light of any human eye. She stole 
quietly out into the garden, and creeping 
along where the shrubbery was the 
thickest, she started at finding herself 
all at once in the boAver where she and 
George had held their stormy interview 
on the night of the ball. She hardly 
knew what impelled her to go there. It 
was the first time she had visited the 
spot since that night, and all the painful 
associations of the place came rushing 
upon her with such overwhelming force 
that for a moment her strength almost 
failed her, and she leaned against the 
trellis-work of the arbor for support. 
With what bitterness every word spoken 
in that last intervieAv now came to her 
mind no language can express. If the 
opportunity she had Avasted then could 
be renewed, Avhat a dififerent use Avould 
she make of it ! How gladly now would 
she throw herself at his feet, and return 
him words of love for his bitterest re- 
proaches ! How gladly AA^ould she humble 
herself in the dust before him, and meet 
his anger with prayers and entreaties 
instead of fierce defiance ! As these mel- 
ancholy reflections took possession of 
her mind, the wild tumult of her 
thoughts broke forth into speech, and, 
stretching her hands towards heaven, 
she cried, — 

“ Oh, George ! if in that unknown re- 
gion to which you are gone the dead 
have any knoAvledge of the world the^^ 
have left, or any care for its concerns ; 
if you can look down and see my repent- 
ance, my remorse, my agony of soul; if 
you can look into my heart and see its devS- 
olation, send some token from the spirit- 
land to show that you accept the miserable 
atonement of tears and anguish I have to 
ofier. If a spirit can be moved by earthly 
love, self-betrayed and smothered long, 
yet unconquerable and indestructible, 
alas, as the worm that never dies ; if a 
spirit can be moved by nights of weeping 
and days of pain, send some token that 
you know my heart at last, if but to re- 
joice in its bitterness.” 

As she ceased speaking, a slight rus- 
tling among the foliage that shaded the 
entrance of the bower caused her to turn 
her eyes in that direction ; a figure 
emerged from the clustering boughs, and 


GEORGE DALTON HARDENS HIS HEART 


199 


George Dalton stood before her. For 
one moment Julia turned ghastly pale, 
and stood paralyzed like one in a trance, 
then, without stopping to inquire how 
George came there, — without asking 
whether it were really George himself, or 
only a cruel phantom of her own excited 
fancy, — she rushed suddenly forward, and 
flung herself in the dust at his feet. 

“ George ! George !’^ she cried, cling- 
ing to his knees, and raising her eyes 
with a piteous look to his face, “whether 
this be you, miraculously restored from 
the grave, or a spirit sent from the other 
world in answer to my prayer, look down 
with pity and see me humbled in the dust 
at your feet, — see my repentance, my hu- 
miliation, my love ; for, oh ! George, I 
have always loved you, and for every 
pang I ever inflicted upon you I have 
suffered tenfold myself. I do not ask for 
your love again, — I know I have deserved 
to forfeit that forever, — but for the love of 
heaven take back those cruel words you 
spoke to me when we last stood here to- 
gether ! — give me one kind look, speak 
one word of comfort, or I die !” 

George wavered a moment, as if swayed 
by conflicting impulses, and a convulsive 
movement passed over his features, then, 
slowly disengaging himself from her 
clasp, he said, coldly, — 

“ I am the bearer of tidings which will 
doubtless be of the greatest comfort to 
you. Miss Malvern: your brother is safe.” 

Was it possible that the announcement 
of Audley’s safety could have brought 
her so little gratification? George’s man- 
ner of telling the news had killed all the 
joy of it. She was no unfeeling monster, 
who viewed her brother’s fate with indif- 
ference, but her heart was swayed at that 
moment by a passion more powerful than 
sisterly love, and her first words, on hear- 
ing the good tidings, would have wounded 
Audley to the quick if he had heard 
them. Rising slowly from the ground, 
she said, sorrowfully, while two big tears 
rolled down her cheeks, — 

“ And is this all you have to say to me, 
George ? Can you not speak one word — 
give me one look even — of kindness ? 
Must you always be so hard and unfor- 
giving to one whose greatest sorrow is 
that she cannot cease to love you, even 
if she tries? Oh, George, I know I am 
saying what no woman should say to a 
man ; I know I am exposing myself to 
shame and humiliation in your sight, but 
I do not shrink from them before you. 
It is but just that you should scorn and 
reject me in your turn. I owe you some 


atonement for the wrong I have done, 
and if my anguish can add sweetness to 
your revenge, then know that your hard- 
ness causes me suffering more fearful 
than my treachery ever inflicted on you. 
There, all the bitterness of my heart is 
laid bare *, rejoice in it if you will, — I can- 
not call you cruel ; — it is but just.” 

She turned away her face to hide the 
tears she could not restrain. A softened 
expression came over George’s features, 
and his tone was less forbidding when 
he spoke again. 

“Julia,” he said, and she started at 
hearing him call her by name, “it would 
have been well for both of us if you had 
listened to the dictates of your own heart 
sooner, but it would be worse than folly 
now. I have been the slave of evil pas- 
sions too long ever to mend. The ex- 
citement of the vicious indulgences in 
which I used to try to drown my feelings 
has now become necessary to me, and it 
would be a baseness, unworthy even the 
beast that I am, to suffer any virtuous 
woman to link her fate with mine. 
Harshly as I have sometimes judged you, 
I am much too bad for even you to be my 
wife.” 

“No, George,” she cried, suddenly 
facing him and resting a hand on each 
of his shoulders. “ Never too bad for me, 
never I if you were a felon in his ceil ; 
never, if you were stained with all the 
crimes of the decalogue ! it should still 
be the dearest labor of these hands to 
beckon you from the mire into which 
they had plunged you.” 

George smiled a bitter smile. “ It 
would be a labor beyond your strength, 
Julia,” he said, disengaging her hands 
gently and putting her from him. “ You 
have not seen the felon in his cell, the 
libertine in his orgies, the swine in his 
mire. If I were your husband and my 
vices were every day laid bare before 
your eyes, you would soon learn to loathe 
and detest me. No, no ; if I valued your 
love, the best thing I could do for myself 
now would be to keep out of your sight. 
You think you could endure me as you 
see me at this moment, but what would 
you do if I should come staggering into 
your presence some day the drunken 
brute that you once called me?” 

“ I would love you all the same,” she 
answered, in a low voice, taking no notice 
of the bitter allusion his words contained. 
“Oh, George ! you may wound and break 
my heart if you will, but can never turn 
it from you.’^ 

George wavered an instant, then started 


200 


A FAMILY SECRET, 


towards her with outstretched arms, but 
only to clasp the empty air. She had 
humbled herself enough, and she felt that 
she could say no more. Her womanly 
pride asserted itself again, and she turned 
hastily away as she uttered those last 
words, and had vanished among the 
shrubbery before George knew what she 
was about. He stood a moment irresolute, 
looking regretfully at the spot from which 
Julia had just disappeared, then folding 
his arms moodily on his breast, he said 
to himself, — 

Perhaps it is better so ; nothing but 
misery could come now of a union be- 
tween us two.” And, turning on his 
heel, he hurried out of the arbor by the 
opposite entrance fi’om which Julia had 
made her exit. 


CHAPTER XLYI. 

OUT OF THE JAWS OF DEATH. 

Julia did not go immediately to seek 
her brother after leaving George in the 
garden. She felt so humbled and wretched 
that she could not all at once open her 
heart to the joy of Audley’s restoration •, 
and to meet him with a cloud on her 
brow after such a separation, that would 
never do. She lingered about among the 
shrubbery for some tinu- -longer, in order 
to calm her agitation, and then proceeded 
towards the house, where she found every- 
thing in commotion on account of the 
extraordinary arrival that had just taken 
place. Not only were the two so bitterly 
wept as dead thus suddenly restored to 
their friends, but they had come singu- 
larly attended; and Julia was surprised, 
as she approached the front door, to see 
a group of United States officers making 
themselves at home, and peacefully smok- 
ing their cigars on the piazza. A strange 
young woman, with fierce, wild eyes, and 
her left hand bound up in a handkerchief, 
came out of the house as Julia entered, 
took up a little bag, containing all her 
worldly goods, that had been deposited 
just outside the door, then disappeared 
again, following the lead of the disdain- 
ful Cleopatra to the back regions of the 
establishment. A burly negro fellow, 
whom the reader will recognize at a 
glance as our old friend Grigg, sleek and 
w^ell-dressed, but wearing a most rueful 


expression of countenance, stuck like a 
leech behind one of the Union officers’ 
chairs, to the evident discomposure of the 
patriot’s olfactories, though he could not 
forsake his principles so far as to request 
his brother man to keep at a more con- 
venient distance. 

Poor Grigg, though surrounded by the 
authors of his freedom, retained such a 
vivid recollection of that night under the 
packing-screw, and still held such exag- 
gerated notions of “Mass’ Julian's” om- 
nipotence, that he was in danger of losing 
faith in the Stars and Stripes, and be- 
trayed unmistakable symptoms, if left to 
himself, of forgetting his new-born dignity 
of freeman and yielding ignominiously to 
the old runaway instincts of the slave, — 
that being the only remedy known to 
Grigg’ s experience against apprehended 
ills. 

Scarcely observing these things, Julia 
pushed on in search of her brother, wdiom 
she found reclining on a sofa in her 
mother’s room, pale and exhausted by 
long illness and the fatigues of his recent 
journey. The joy of the occasion was 
too deep to admit of many words. Ruth 
and Mrs. Malvern stood aside an instant 
for the brother and sister to embrace, 
then they all sat down by the couch of 
the invalid, Ruth resuming her station at 
the head, as by common consent the first 
place was yielded to her. Nobody cared 
to speak ; nobody could express in words 
the unutterable emotions of that hour. 
Audley lay for some time in a kind of 
delicious trance, only raising his hand 
now and then to touch the soft fingers 
that w^ere stroking his hair, or opening 
his eyes at intervals to gaze into the fair 
young face bending so tenderly over him. 

After several minutes of this delicious 
repose, Audley was the first to break 
silence. Fixing his eyes steadfastly on 
each of them in turn, he exclaimed all at 
once, as they rested on his sister, — 

“Good heavens, Julia, wffiat is the 
matter with you? You haven’t been 
breaking your heart about anybody, have 
you?” he added, in a whisper, drawing 
her face down close to his own; “be- 
cause,” he continued, caressingly, as she 
rested her head for a moment on the 
pillow beside him, “ there is not a rascal 
on the face of the earth worth what I 
read in your face.” 

“ I have been very wretched, Audley,” 
she answered, returning his caress ; “ but 
it’s all over now; all over,” she repeated, 
absently, and smiled one of those ghastly 
smiles under which misery so often seeks 


OUT OF THE JAWS OF DEATH 


201 


to hide itself. Audley said no more. He 
knew the proud reserve of Julia’s nature, 
and would not wound her by pursuino; a 
theme on which she chose to be silent ; 
but her altered appearance shocked and 
distressed him so that his eyes frequently 
wandered from Ruth’s face to his sister’s. 
Grief had not made the same havoc with 
Ruth’s beauty as Avith Julia’s, but seemed 
rather to have added to it a soft, romantic 
charm. Its traces were plainly legible in 
the paleness of her countenance, and a 
certain touching melancholy that seemed 
too deeply impressed upon her features 
to vanish all at once, even in that moment 
of restored happiness ; but there were no 
signs of that wild and stormy passion, 
that grief driven almost to madness, that 
sorrow which has no hope, that stared 
in Julia’s hollow eyes and sunken cheeks. 

Next to the woman he had chosen for 
his wife Audley loved his sister better 
than anything else in the world, and the 
sight of her altered features disturbed his 
peace of mind. He almost forgot for the 
moment how far Julia had been the 
author of her own wretchedness, and felt 
as if he would like to break George’s 
head for him *, but not having that satis- 
faction within reach just then, he made 
an effort to divert his thoughts from Julia 
by talking about something else. 

“ And so you have had George and me 
both dead and buried, have you?” he be- 
gan, after a pause. Well, I don’t won- 
der at the report, for we have passed 
through adventures that ought, in all 
reason, to have made an end of us. 
There was a time, Ruth, when I little 
thought ever to look upon your face 
again. Move around a little, so that I 
can see you better. There !” gazing at 
her fondly ; “ you have been getting 

more beautiful every day. AYhat an ir- 
resistible little widow you would make !” 

“Hush!” cried Ruth, with a shudder, 
placing her hands over his lips*, “the 
subject is too horrible for jesting, Aud- 
ley. I was a widow, in all but the name, 
till you came back.” 

Audley caught the little hand that 
rested on his lips and pressed it tight in 
his own. 

“ I have something to tell you, Ruth, 
by and by, that will astonish you very 
much,” he said, regarding her with a 
mysterious smile. 

“ Nothing can astonish us, my son,” 
replied his mother, “ since you have been 
so miraculously restored ; but come, you 
have not told us yet how it all hap- 
pened.” 


Audley was not more averse to dis- 
coursing of his own adventures than 
other men, and was soon engaged in 
relating them to his three eager hearers, 
carefully avoiding, however, any allusion 
to Seabury and his disclosures, which he 
preferred communicating first to Ruth 
privately. 

As the reader is already fully ac- 
quainted with the adventures of our two 
heroes, it is unnecessary to repeat Aud- 
ley’ s conversation here, as little of im- 
portance remains to be told. The excite- 
ments attendant upon the discovery of 
Ruth’s father brought on a fresh access 
of fever, which retarded their movements 
very materially, and, together with the 
many interruptions to travel, delayed 
their return to South Ambury so much, 
that the news of George’s death had am- 
ple time to precede his arrival. He had 
not been able to dispatch a courier with 
news of Audley, for it was all over with 
the Confederacy by that time, and the 
conquerors were taking possession of the 
country in every direction. Fortunately, 
Schuyler’s commanding officer had been 
ordered to make his headquarters at 
South Ambury, and the two young Con- 
federates, after formally surrendering 
themselves as prisoners of war, were 
permitted to return home under the 
escort of their Yankee friend. Schuyler 
was a gentleman of the first water, and 
had behaved most nobly towards his 
rebel acquaintances ever since their first 
meeting. He kept them as guests at his 
quarters, and not only supplied Audley 
during his illness with all the luxuries 
of a well-stored commissariat, but re- 
signed to the invalid his own tent, with 
the many comforts it contained, for he 
was a man of large fortune, and could 
afford to make his soldier’s fare a toler- 
ably luxurious one. In return for these 
courtesies, George had invited Schuyler 
to be his guest during the time that his 
regiment was quartered in South Am- 
bury, and obtained his colonel’s consent 
to the arrangement. He also carried 
home with him the negro Grigg, whose 
ministrations had become indispensable 
to Audley, and the young woman Nan 
Hackett, for whose forlorn condition he 
felt himself responsible in having per- 
mitted that “ burglarious attack,” as he 
styled it, on the hut. He felt that she 
had been deprived of her natural pro- 
tectors, such as they were, by his means, 
and he could not rest satisfied till he had 
placed her under the care of his mother 
or his aunt, and seen that she was pro- 


£02 


A FAMILY SECRET. 


vided with the means of livinic honestly 
and virtuously. He knew nothing about 
the little gunpowder-plot that Schuyler’s 
men had frustrated so seasonably, and if 
he had it would have made no change in 
George's generous intentions. 

The country being very much dis- 
turbed just at that time, Schuyler had 
kindly offered to station guards of his 
own men, under officers for whose charac- 
ter as gentlemen he could vouch, over the 
premises of any of his friends for whom 
George might desire such protection, — 
a circumstance which will account for 
the group of Federal officers Julia had 
seen on the piazza. As the White House 
lay first along their route, they had 
halted there, intending to leave a guard 
and proceed to Sandowne afterwards, but 
finding both families assembled at the 
mansion, there was no need to go farther 
that day, especially as the invalid was 
much in need of rest. They had ar- 
rived just as the family party assembled 
at Mr. Harfleur’s table had finished their 
dinner, and while Julia was hiding among 
the shrubbery, so that the first intimation 
she received of th(^ joyous event was 
from George’s sudden appearance in the 
garden. George, after greeting his fam- 
ily, had taken the first opportunity to 
withdraw from the house, for the ex- 
press purpose of avoiding Julia, who he 
expected would appear immediately to 
embrace her brother. How far he ac- 
complished his object has been seen. 


CHAPTER XLYII. 

MR. GEORGE BRUEN OBJECTS TO TURNING A 
SOMERSAULT. 

Audley Malvern was naturally very 
impatient to have a private interview with 
Ruth, but the desired opportunity did not 
occur till late in the evening. 

The family were assembled on the front 
piazza, that universal place of summer 
evening resort to Southern households, 
when Audley, having taken some much- 
needed rest in his own room, joined the 
now by no means diminutive circle that 
made up the social life of the AVhite 
House. He had felt a little uncomfort- 
able at the idea of meeting Claude, but 
found her playing the deuce with Schuyler 
to such a degree that he immediately dis- 


carded all anxiety on his own account, 
and concluded that a certain little episode, 
in which he himself had not cut a very 
creditable figure, had left no damaging 
effects upon her heart. After exchanging, 
for the sake of courtesy, a few words, 
which they were both glad to be done with, 
he contrived to slip away with Ruth to the 
little side-entrance on the west, where he 
had first declared his love, and where 
they could now talk together unobserved. 
It was that part of the piazza which was 
so shaded by luxuriant creepers, and the 
entrance to the arbor where Ruth had 
first succeeded in propitiating her way- 
ward brother opened at the foot of the 
steps where the lovers were seated. All 
this wonderful net-work of vines was now 
covered with a drapery of glorious blos- 
soms, that loaded the air with perfume, 
and it seemed to Audley, as he watched 
Ruth pluck a spray of yellow jessamine 
and pin it in her hair, that this land, 
which he had once thought so dreary, 
was nothing less than Paradise, and that 
one of its houris stood before him. 

Ruth took her seat on the uppermost 
step, . and Audley, placing himself at her 
feet, sat meditating for some time as to 
how he should begin what he had to say. 
At last, raising his eyes to her face with 
a look full of meaning, he asked, — 

“What would you do, Ruth, if your 
situation and Claude’s were suddenly re- 
versed ? if you were the proud heiress and 
she the nameless outcast ?” 

“ That is a very useless speculation, 
Audley,” answered Ruth, turning away, 
as though pained by the reference to her 
own condition. 

“ No *, but by heaven it is not useless !” 
cried Audley, taking both her hands and 
drawing her gently round, so as to look 
him full in the face. “ Tell me, Ruth, 
what would you do ?” 

“ I don’t know ; what you say is so un- 
likely, I have never thought about it; but 
I suppose my first duty Avould be to pro- 
vide for Claude, and soften the change to 
her as much as possible ; and then I 
would be very glad to think you would 
not have to marry so much beneath you 
in taking me for your wife.’^ 

Audley smiled with peculiar meaning. 

“ The tables are turned now, Ruth,” he 
said, “ so that I am not such a self-sacri- 
ficing saint, after all, in condescending to 
marry you. My supposition wa^ not a 
mere idle speculation : you are the legiti- 
mate inheritor of a name as honorable as 
my own ; and of a fortune in comparison 
with which all that I ever possessed is but 


MR, GEORGE BRUEN OBJECTS TO TURNING A SOMERSAULT. 203 


a trifle. Kuth, I have seen your father, 
and have solved the mystery of your life.” 

He then related to her, as accurately as 
he could, the history of Mortimer Seabury, 
from his first interview with him beside 
the stream down to the moment when 
they laid him to rest under the spreading 
live-oak that was to be his monument 
until his remains could be gathered up 
and placed beside his wife. 

Ruth listened with breathless attention, 
and when Audley repeated that part of 
Seabury’s story relating to the adventure 
in the church-yard, and the terrible events 
on the day of the tournament, he felt her 
hand tremble so violently in his own that 
he paused a moment, half frightened at 
the effect of his revelation. There was 
something that made her shudder in the 
thought that this man, whom she had re- 
garded with fear and suspicion, was her 
Either ; and it was not till long afterwards, 
when she beheld, at his house in London, 
a portrait of Seabury as her mother had 
known him, and traced in his handsoiue 
features the veritable lineaments of the 
vagabond outlaw, that she quite overcame 
the impression. 

Towards Mr. Harfleur her feeling was 
one of intense horror, mingled with com- 
assion for the new victims of his crime, 
he would willingly have saved Claude 
and Bruen from the shame the discovery 
of their father’s baseness would bring 
upon them, even to the point of sparing 
Mr. Harfleur, could she have done so with 
justice to her own parents. Audley, who 
felt that his own conduct towards Claude 
had not been quite free from blame, gladly 
acquiesced in all Ruth's plans for soften- 
ing the blow to her sister, and entirely 
approved of her suggestion that her grand- 
father’ s estate should be divided between 
Claude and Bruen, though the proviso in 
the old gentleman’s will, bequeathing it 
to Nettie’s legitimate children, would now 
make her sole heiress, if she chose to 
assert her claim. Audley could not help 
admiring the spirit of generosity and for* 
bearance she exhibited, as they talked 
over her altered prospects, and considered 
what course it would be best to pursue in 
the assertion of her rights, as to the ob- 
taining of which there was not now the 
shadow of a doubt, "vvith all the evidence 
they had at hand. 

The conversation of the lovers was not 
entirely devoted to this subject, however, 
as may readily be imagined, and there is 
no telling how much it would have been 
prolonged, with its little digressions, if 
the falling dew had not reminded Ruth 


that her lover was still an invalid, and 
caused her to insist with tender anxiety 
upon retiring within-doors. Audley, 
who was quite ready to accept all the 
petting and spoiling his situation gave 
room for, and a good deal more besides, 
lingered awhile, just to enjoy the luxury 
of beholding her solicitude, then slowly 
rose and made his way into the house, 
leaning upon her arm. 

As soon as they had disappeared, a 
stealthy figure glided from the cavernous 
arbor just beyond the piazza-steps, and, 
creeping to the foot of the railing, stood 
gazing with fierce, wild eyes towards an 
open window through which the forms of 
the two lovers were distinctly visible, as 
they lingered over their “good-night” in 
the cabinet behind the drawing-room. 
At the same moment another dark form 
emerged from the shrubbery that had 
overgrown the garden in every direction, 
and moved rapidly towards the house. It 
halted suddenly on perceiving some one 
at the foot of the steps, and shrunk back 
into the shadow of a great myrtle-bush 
that stood near, but in reaching this 
shelter it passed through a gleam of light 
from the cabinet window, that revealed 
the stern features of Julian Harfleur, 
distorted now by the workings of some 
fierce passion within his soul. Had he 
overheard Audley’s conversation with 
Ruth? or had he, with the ready instinct 
of crime, scented his danger from the 
vague rumors already set afloat by 
Schuyler’s men concerning the outlaw 
chief and his captured band? No one 
will ever know. A guilty conscience is 
quick to take alarm, and Mr. Harfleur 
felt the toils closing around him at last ; 
the web he himself had woven, at what 
cost heaven only knows, had caught him 
in its folds ; exposure and disgrace were 
staring him in the face, and Mr. Har- 
fleur’s pride could not endure exposure, 
though it had not shrunk from crime. 
Nothing short of outright murder could 
save him now, and Julian Harfleur’s 
villany was of too refined a type for that. 
It was not the morality of the thing that 
repulsed him, but the brutality. He 
would murder by intrigue without a 
qualm, — in fact, he had been plotting half 
his life to destroy the lives of others, but 
there was a coarseness about direct blood- 
shed that revolted his intellectual nature. 
He did not lack boldness or nerve, but 
his wickedness was of too refined and in- 
tellectual a type for Thuggism, and he 
would have shrunk as sensitively as a 
tender-hearted woman from actually im- 


204 


A FAMILY SECRET. 


briiing his hands in the blood of another. 
But his heart was full of murder, and at 
the very moment when Ruth and her 
lover were generously resolving to screen 
him as far as justice would permit from 
the consequences of his crime, he was 
secretly cursing his stars that they w^ere 
not both of them consigned to the bot- 
tomless pit. If either were out of the 
way, there might be some chance of 
safety, and it seemed to him a cruel 
mockery of fate that had laid low at last 
the enemy he had dreaded so long, only 
to raise up in his place an avenging Nem- 
esis in the person of Audley Malvern. 

But though, of all persons living, 
Audley Malvern was perhaps the one 
most dangerous to Mr. Ilarfleur, in the 
knowledge he possessed and in his mo- 
tives for using that knowledge, it was 
against Ruth that the bad man’s malig- 
nant passions were most deeply stirred. 
She had been an object of secret terror 
to him so long that he had come to regard 
her as the evil genius of his life. She 
had eluded his schemes for her destruc- 
tion so often, that the mere act of living 
seemed in her a willful defiance of his 
rights. He had brought himself to look 
upon her very existence as a wrong 
against himself, and he hated her for it. 
If anything could have tempted him to 
the actual execution of a deed that he 
had never shrunk from contriving, it was 
his hatred for the daughter of a man 
whom his malice pursued even beyond 
the grave, and this night he felt his 
hand almost ready to do the work his 
head had so often planned in vain. If 
she were fairly out of the way Malvern 
would have less motive for disclosing 
what he knew, and Claude might become 
to him a motive for silence. 

It was in the midst of these reflections 
that his attention was attracted by the 
figure of a woman standing at the foot of 
the stair-railing, a few paces in front of 
him. So absorbed was she in watching 
the proceedings of the lovers through the 
open window, that she Imd not heard the 
sound of Mr. Ilarfleur’s foot-fall, and was 
all unconscious of a gleam of lamp-light 
from the house, that fell full upon her 
face and betrayed its passionate workings. 
Mr. Ilarfleur recognized at a glance the 
young woman who had accompanied 
George’s party ; and something in her 
aspect seemed to strike him all at once 
with peculiar significance. A sinister 
smile overspread h's dark features, and, 
drawing near on tip-toe, he stood watch- 
ing her intently. 


She never once withdrew her ej^es from 
the window, and at times a wild, maniacal 
light would dart from them as something 
transpired within to rouse into fiercer 
fury the passion that was tearing her 
bosom. She held, half concealed in the 
folds of her dress, a large pruning-knife 
that she had picked up somewhere in the 
garden, and once, when Audley was seen 
to pass his fingers caressingly through 
Ruth’s shining hair, she made a sudden 
lunge with her weapon in the dark, as if 
testing its strength on some imaginary 
victim, then turning her eyes for the first 
time from the window, she scanned the 
blade with awful significance. 

Julian Ilarfleur’s lips parted in a 
deadly smile. He had no difficulty in 
reading the little pantomime so uncon- 
sciously acting before him. Love, jeal- 
ousy, madness, — here were instruments 
for working his will, if only an oppor- 
tunity could be made for them to work 
in time. He stood a moment, with his 
hand pressed to his forehead in deep 
cogitation, then hurried away, silently 
as he had come, leaving Nan Hackett 
undisturbed in the contemplation of a 
scene which he knew was better calcu- 
lated than anything he could say to rouse 
to frenzy the incipient madness he saw 
gleaming in her eyes. 

Mr. Ilarfleur Avent immediately from 
the garden to the apartment of his quad- 
roon housekeeper, the magnificent “ Cleo- 
patra” of irreverent gossips, and began 
to inquire, with unusual solicitude, into 
her arrangements for the accommodation 
of his guests, of whom there were enough 
to stretch to their utmost capacity even 
the liberal dimensions of old Randolph 
Bruen’s hospitable mansion. 

With secret satisfaction he learned that 
all had been provided for except Nan 
Hackett, who remained, a most unman- 
ageable elephant, on the hands of the 
troubled housekeeper. 

“You see. Mass’ Julian,” she said, in 
concluding the recital of her difficulties, 
“ them poor white trash thinks theirselves 
too good to go with niggers, and they ain’t 
fitten to be put Avith white folks, and 
every room in the house is full, so I just 
don’t know what to do AAuth her.” 

‘‘ Can’t you make. a bed for her in one 
of your young mistresses’ rooms?” sug- 
gested Mr. Ilarfleur. ‘‘They AA^ouldn’t 
mind it for one night, and something 
must be done with the girl.” 

“Miss Claude is going to take Mrs. 
Mah^ern inAvith her,” returned Cleopatra. 
“Them real gentlefolks ahA^ays seems tj 


MR, GEORGE BRJJEN OBJECTS TO TURNING A SOMERSAULT 205 


know, of their own accord, what other 
folks would like ’em to do; so, without 
anybody saying a word to her, Mrs. 
Malvern conies to me, and she says she 
knowed we was crowded, and offered to 
give up her room to the strangers, and 
sleep with one o’ tjie young ladies; and 
as Miss Claude has the best room in the 
house, I got her to take her in there, so 
there ain’t no room for poor white trash 
in there.” 

“ And your Miss Kuth?” 

“ She'll stay in the little room at the 
end of the gallery. There ain’t but one 
bed in that room ; but the old sofa that 
you sent out of the parlor when the new 
furniture was brought is stowed away 
there.” 

‘‘ Very well ; put some bedding on it 
and dispose of the girl there. I’ll speak 
to your Miss Ruth about it myself; she’ll 
not mind it for a single night, especially 
as the young woman seems to be ajpro- 
UgSe of her friend Major Dalton.” 

Having completed this extremely satis- 
factory arrangement, Mr. Harfleur put 
on his blandest smile and returned to his 
guests. Ilis face was beaming as he 
entered the parlor, for he was thinking 
to himself, “ The room over the gallery is 
detached from the rest of the house, and 
nobody would be likely to hear a cry from 
there.” 

It was late that night before any one 
at the White House thought of going to 
bed. Julia went up-stairs first, accom- 
panied by Ruth, to see that all Mrs. 
Malvern’s effects had been transferred 
from the apartment she had surrendered 
to Claude’s; and, having completed their 
inspection, were about retiring to their re- 
spective quarters when they were startled 
by a most extraordinary scuffling and 
lumbering in the room opposite, as 
though heavy furniture were being 
pushed about; and old Mr. Bruen’s 
voice was heard storming vociferously in 
the midst of it all. Hastening to learn 
the cause of the disturbance, Ruth found 
her uncle, hot and red with excitement, 
making clamorous protestations in reply 
to his wife’s efforts to quiet him. 

“ I don’t want to turn a somersault, 
Margaret! by gad, I won’t be made to 
turn a somersault! I’ll go back to San- 
downe first.” 

For a moment Ruth thought the old 
gentleman must have taken too much 
toddy. 

What are you talking about, uncle ?” 
she said. “ Nobody wants you to do 
anything of that sort.” 


‘‘Look there! just look at that bed !” 
bawled Mr. Bruen, pointing to an elegant 
bedstead of black walnut ; “ do you think 
I want to be turned upside-down in my 
sleep like that? D — n my soul! — may 
the Lord forgive me, Ruth ! I didn’t mean 
to say it; but I won’t be turned upside- 
down.” 

Ruth looked at the bed and could see 
nothing amiss ; on the contrary, it ap- 
peared most invitingly soft and clean,— 
and she told hev uncle so. 

“ You’re a fool !” blurted the old gen- 
tleman, impatiently, interrupting her 
housewifely inspection of the sheets and 
pillows. “Don’t you see that it sits 
east and west; and the mosquito-bar is 
fastened to the ceiling, so that I can’t 
move it without letting the d — d things 
— no, Margaret ; I didn’t go to say it — 
eat me up?” 

As Ruth looked more mystified than 
ever, Mrs. Bruen ventured an explana- 
tion. 

“ It is some notion your uncle has, my 
dear,” she began, “ about the rotation of 
the earth ” 

“A notion ! you call it a notion !” broke 
in Mr. Bruen, interrupting her. “ Why, 
it’s a scientific fact; anybody can see 
that who will take the trouble to think a 
minute. The earth turns on its axis from 
west to east ; and it is plain as a weather- 
cock on a church-steeple that if your bed 
stands east and west, the rotation of the 
earth during the night carries you over, 
from head to foot and causes you to turn 
a somersault ; while, if you lie north and 
south, you are merely turned gently over 
from side to side, which any fool can see 
is much more wholesome and much better 
for the liver than to be tumbling head- 
over-heels all night, — to say nothing of 
magnetic currents, and their influence on 
the brain and the circulation of the blood. 
Everybody,” he continued, warming with 
his pet theme, “ ought to lie with their 
heads to the north, the centre of magnetic 
influence, so that its action will not be 
contrary to the movements of the brain. 
Half the restlessness and bad dreams that 
people are troubled with come from inat- 
tention to this simple hygienic principle. 
Why, God bless my soul ! I couldn’t sleep 
a Avink Avith magnetic currents running 
contrary to the circulation of my blood, 
disordering my heart and liver, and my 
heels flying OA^er my head all night like 
a tumbler in a circus. No, by Jupiter ! 
may the Lord forgive me, Margaret ! but I 
Avon’t be forced to spend the night turning 
somersaults; I’ll go to Sandowne first.” 


206 


A FAMILY SECRET, 


“Well, uncle, said Ruth, with diffi- 
culty concealing her amusement at this 
new piece of quackery the old gentleman 
had got into his head, “ I think we can 
settle the difficulty without resorting to 
such extreme measures. In the room I 
am to occupy the head of the bed is to- 
wards the north, you and aunt can occupy 
that 5 and although a somersault is not a 
very ladylike proceeding, still, as there 
will be no one to witness my performance 
of it, I can sleep very ^comfortably in 
here.” 

The, old gentleman scented the laughter 
lurking in her words, and felt his dignity 
offended. lie gave her a lecture fof her 
imprudence and want of common sense, 
scolded her for the unreasonableness of 
young people in general, till at last, 
having fairly talked himself out, he was 
hustled off by his wife and put to bed, let 
us hope, without more ado. 

Scarcely was he out of sight when 
“ Cleopatra” made her appearance, and 
asked, with some trepidation, — 

“What is to be done with the young 
woman. Miss Ruth ? Mr. Ilarfleur said 
she was to sleep on the sofa in that room 
you have given up ; but she can’t stay in 
there now with Mr. and Mrs. Bruen, and 
there ain’t but one bed in here, where 
you’re going to sleep, and the room is too 
small for anything else. Them poor white 
trash is always in the way, anyhow.’ ' 

The difficulty was solved by Julia, who, 
from Claude’s room across the corridor, 
had overheard all that transpired. 

“Put the poor girl in my room,” she 
said, coming to the door and addressing 
the distracted housekeeper. “ There is 
ample space for another bed, and I don’t 
mind having her at all ; in fact, as I am 
to sleep down-stairs in the isolated left 
wing, I would rather have some one in 
my room than not.” 

Cleopatra, glad to have this trouble- 
some elephant off her hands at last, con- 
ducted Nan immediately to Miss Malvern’s 
apartment. As she was unaware of the 
secret motive for Mr. Ilarfleur’s solicitude 
on her account, she did not, of course, 
think it necessary to inform him of the 
slight change that had been made rela- 
tive to the disposal of so insignificant a 
person. 

Long after everybody else had gone to 
bed, George Dalton and Audley Malvern 
sat talking together. Somehow George 
felt more restless and dissatisfied with 
himself that night than he had ever done 
before. He could not sleep, and, to escape 
from the burden of his own thoughts, had 


gone over to Audley’ s room in the hope 
of distracting his mind by talking over 
the affairs of his friend. 

“ Have you exploded your mine yet?” 
he asked, seating himself on the edge of 
Audley’s bed. 

“ No; I have only told Ruth,” replied 
Audley. “ I intend to lay the whole 
matter before your uncle, and consult 
with him before taking any decided steps. 
For the sake of her brother and sister, 
Ruth wishes to be as merciful to Har- 
fleur as is compatible with justice to the 
dead.” 

“Not very tender mercy he’ll get even 
at that,” said George. 

“ The dog Tadpole can- easily be induced 
to turn State’s evidence, don’t you think 
so?” asked Audley. 

“ Yes ; he’ll turn anything to save his 
precious skin ; but when are you going 
to begin, Audley? I want to see your 
business dispatched as quickly as possi- 
ble. Life is insupportable to me now 
without desperate excitements, and I’ve 
a notion of going to join Maximilian in 
Mexico — hush! what’s that?’ ^ 

Both young men started to their feet at 
the same instant. A succession of smoth- 
ered screams seemed to proceed from the 
opposite wing of the mansion, but the 
cries were so confused and broken by in- 
tervening walls, that it was impossible to 
tell what they meant. Audley grasped 
his cane and limped after George, who 
threw open a window to listen. Audley’s 
rooih was on the lower floor, overlooking 
the garden, across which the sound was 
borne more distinctly. There was a con- 
fused noise of women’s voices shrieking 
wildly, then a cry of distress, drowned 
by demoniac yells that mingled with it. 

“ Good God, that’s Julia’s voice!” cried 
Audley, turning pale, as the cry reached 
him ; “in the name of heaven, George — ” 
But before the words were out of his 
mouth George had vaulted through the 
open window and was out of sight. 


CHAPTER XLYIII. 

A WEDDING OR A FUNERAL? 

When Julia Malvern retired to her 
own apartment she found Nan Hackett 
in quiet possession of the lodging assigned 
her. There was no light in the room 


A WEDDING OR A FUNERAL? 


207 


except what the moonbeams, struggling 
through vine-shadowed windows, afforded; 
but J ulia guessed, from the slow, measured 
breathing that proceeded from the corner 
where Nan’s bed was made, that her 
strange companion was already asleep. 
She was glad of this, for she longed to be 
alone. She did not light her lamp ; the 
moonshine was bright enough for her to 
grope her way about the room by it, and 
Julia shunned the light because her soul 
was dark. She almost sighed as she put 
off the black dress she was to wear no 
more ; it seemed such a mockery to lay 
aside the garb of mourning when her 
heart was shrouded in blackness forever. 
True, Audley was restored to her, — she 
felt thankful for that; but George, though 
reprieved from the grave, was lost to her 
forever, and his anger was more cruel 
than death. She was thankful that he 
had been spared, though his words left 
her little reason to hope that it was for a 
better life, or that the work of ruin which 
her hand had commenced would ever be 
undone, and she must bear the burden of 
it through all eternity. Yet even this — 
may heaven forgive her the thought ! — 
she felt was less intolerable than to bear 
his hatred and contempt, — to live under 
the ban of everlasting separation that he 
had pronounced between them. He had 
repelled her, turned from her in hatred, 
and that when she had humbled herself 
in the dust before him. Proud as her 
nature was, she did not regret the humil- 
iation ; he might trample on her pride if 
he chose, but her heart was breaking 
under his coldness, and she felt, now she 
had lost it forever, that without his love 
heaven itself would be a hell to her. 

She knew that her thoughts were 
wicked, and she struggled hard against 
them. With her long flaxen hair stream- 
ing over her shoulders, and her hands 
pressed tightly on her forehead, she sat 
alone in the darkness, wrestling with an 
anguish that seemed too heavy to be 
borne ; till at last, by a sudden impulse, 
she slid from her chair and dropped upon 
her knees before the open window. Could 
it be that heaven, knowing how near to 
eternity she would be before that night 
passed away, had inspired her with the 
holy thought? 

J ulia had never been used to pray, — it 
might have been better for her peace of 
mind if she had, — and even now I cannot 
answer for the orthodoxy of her appeal. 
Her petitions to high heaven went up 
mingled with many a poor human long- 
ing, sullied perchance with vain regrets 


and passionate yearnings for the idol that 
had failed her ; but she prayed the best 
she knew hotv, with sincerity and open- 
ness of heart, and let us trust that heaven 
in its mercy had pity on the human frail- 
ties of a soul struggling in the bonds of 
human misery, for she rose from her 
knees refreshed in spirit, and laid her- 
self down upon her bed with a calmness 
and quietness she had not knoAvn for 
months. 

She sank at last into the troubled, unre- 
freshing slumber of one “ sleeping for sor- 
row,” and had lain unconscious for an hour 
or more, when she was suddenly roused 
by a sound as of some one creeping 
steathily about the room. Upon the first 
indication of her being awake, all move- 
ment instantly ceased ; and, as Julia was 
not a nervous or timid person, she con- 
cluded, after listening attentively awhile 
and hearing nothing, that she had been 
mistaken, and was about to close her eyes 
and seek oblivion again in sleep, when it 
occurred to her all at once that the room 
was unaccountably hot and stifling, and 
she observed for the first time that the 
windows which she had left open to admit 
the cool night air were all closed tight and 
the shutters drawn to. She wondered if 
her companion had waked during the 
night and had her fears excited by any 
noise outside. She called her name gently 
two or three times, but received no answer. 
The thought then suggested itself to her 
mind that Nan might be a somnambulist, 
and, going to the girl’s bed to see if she were 
there, she found it vacant. Feeling uneasy 
on Nan’s account, she groped her way to 
the door, but found it locked and the key 
gone ; and, as she rattled the latch in her 
fruitless effort to move the bolt, a peal 
of wild, demoniac laughter sounded close 
to her ear. Seriously alarmed, she rushed 
towards the bell-rope, but only to find it 
tied up out of her reach. A dash at the 
nearest window proved equally vain ; it 
was tightly closed ; and, while she was 
struggling helplessly to raise the heavy 
sash, she felt herself suddenly seized by 
the hair, and saw by the dim moonlight 
that struggled in through the crevices of 
the blinds the gleam of a long murderous 
knife brandished over her head. With a 
sudden bound she freed herself from the 
maniac’s grasp, but there was no chance 
of escape from the room. She made a 
dash at each window as she passed, but 
only to find them all securely fastened ; 
and, even if she had had the strength, she 
could not have taken the time to burst 
them open, for the yelling fury was close 


208 


A FAMILY SFCBEF 


at her heels, brandishing her weapon in 
the air, and shrieking like a demon. 
Round and round the room they sped in 
the frantic race of life and death, leaping 
over chairs and tables in the dark, up- 
setting everything that stood in their 
way, — one Avildly crying for help, the 
other madly shrieking out her insane 
vengeance, — hurling against her victim’s 
head, or dashing furiously to the ground, 
every movable thing she could lay her 
hands upon. 

Chased from corner to corner, bruised 
and bleeding with injuries she had re- 
ceived from missiles hurled by her frantic 
assailant, or from obstacles she had rushed 
against in the dark, feeling the fierce 
lunatic gaining so fast upon her steps 
that she hacked the streaming hair and 
garments of her victim with her weapon, 
Julia at last gave up the useless struggle, 
and, raising her arms above her head in a 
gesture of hopeless entreaty, she sank 
down exhausted before the window she 
had vainly tried to open. At the same 
instant the shutters were burst open from 
without, letting in a stream of moonlight 
on her face, and Nan Hackett then, for 
the first time, discerned the features of 
her victim. 

It was not the face she expected to 
see, for Mr. Ilarfleur had taken pains to 
have her informed that she was to pass 
the night in Ruth’s apartment, and no 
one had thought it worth while to inform 
her of the change. She wavered an in- 
stant, the picture of a baffled Erinnys, 
then, with a wild yell of rage and disap- 
pointment, rushed forward and plunged 
her knife into Julia’s breast, just as 
George Dalton, with one blow from his 
powerful arm, shivered the window-sash 
to atoms and sprang into the room. lie 
drew the weapon from Julia’s breast and 
pressed his hand frantically over the 
bleeding wound. Julia raised her eyes an 
instant and saw that she was in George 
Daltojn’s arms *, she fixed upon him a look 
of passionate fondness that would have 
melted a heart of stone ; then a glassy 
stare came over her features and sealed 
them with the image of death. 

Oh, George, it is all in vain now that 
you answer that mute appeal with pas- 
sionate kisses and words of burning love ; 
those lips are insensible to your kisses, 
and the love which, an hour ago, she 
would have given her heart’s blood to 
regain, now that the price is paid and 
it is won, moves her no more than if 
she were stone. Too late, George, come 
your forgiveness and your embraces; and 


it seems like a cruel mockery to lavish 
upon senseless clay the tenderness the 
living heart yearned for in vain. Too 
late, all too late! The burden of how 
many a soul’s despair is written in those 
words! 

So George thought as he raised the life- 
less form in his arms and laid it on the 
bed. All the household had been alarmed 
by this time, and came hurrying to the 
scene of the tragedy. Poor Mrs. Mal- 
vern, whose joy had been so suddenly 
changed into mourning, was almost be- 
side herself with grief, and the utmost 
consternation prevailed everywhere as 
soon as the dreadful truth was known. 
George was the only person who seemed 
to remain perfectly calm and unmoved 
amid the general commotion. Tie sat by 
the bed with Julia’s head pillowed on his 
arm and his eyes riveted upon the pale, 
rigid features, as though fixed by a spell 
that no power could break. Ilis lips were 
pressed firmly together ; not a groan nor 
a sigh escaped him ; he spoke to no one, 
he heeded no one; he was conscious of 
nothing but the cold, immovable face be- 
fore him. 

But, though he betrayed no sign of 
emotion, those who knew him best knew 
only too well what that awful calmness 
meant. No one addressed him; no oite 
dared to intrude upon his grief ; for, 
though he and Julia had seemed so widely 
sundered in life, yet, somehow, all felt in- 
stinctively that he had the best right to be 
at her side now. Mrs. Malvern herself 
did not attempt to displace him, and Aud- 
ley, though frantic with grief at the loss 
of a sister whom he all but idolized, re- 
spected George’s title to the miserable 
pre-eminence in sorrow. . 

Only once did George indulge in any 
outward expression of his feelings. Aud- 
ley was leaning over the bed gazing at 
his sister’s face, and the sight so overcame 
him that he staggered and almost fell upon 
the body. George put out his hand to sus- 
tain him, and, raising his eyes an instant 
to his friend’s face, said, in a voice that 
quivered with anguish, — 

“Oh, Audley, you were never cruel to 
her as I have been !” And he fell to kiss- 
ing the pale, motionless lips, as though 
he would warm them back into life with 
the ardor pf his love. Did he think, 
then, of the words of passionate entreaty 
those rigid lips had addressed to him so 
fruitlessly a few hours ago? Did he re- 
member how she had knelt at his feet, 
and the cruel repulse she had met at his 
hand? Whatever his thoughts were about. 


A WEDDING OR A FUNERAL? 


209 


they must have been bitter enough, heaven 
knows ; for there was nothing in all the 
past relations between Julia and himself 
that could have suggested a consoling re- 
flection at such a time. 

Among the officers who had accom- 
panied Schuyler was, fortunately, the 
surgeon attached to his regiment, to 
whose services Audley was in a great 
measure indebted for his present conval- 
escence. This person was immediately 
summoned to Julia’s bedside, not with 
the hope that he could do any good, but 
from that blind dependence which people 
place in the judgment of medical men at 
such times, they hardly knoAV why. 

The physician approached the couch 
on which Julia lay, and quietly felt her 
pulse. Mrs. Malvern watched him eag- 
erly, and something in his face made her 
start with a wild, undefined hope as his 
fingers touched the cold, nerveless hand. 
He held it for some moments without 
speaking, then placed his hand over her 
heart and waited anxiously for some sign 
of its beating. When he had finished his 
examination he beckoned Ruth to him. 

Bring stimulants, quick,” he whisp- 
ered, and Ruth disappeared. 

Mrs. Malvern had overheard. 

“Doctor,” she gasped, “is there any 
hope?” 

“ Life is not yet extinct,” replied the 
physician, evasively. 

“ And can she recover, — is there any 
possibility, any tiope?” cried the dis- 
tracted mother, grasping his arm. 

“ The wound in itself is not danger- 
ous,” he answered. “ The weapon, an 
old garden pruning-knife, was too dull 
to reach a vital part; but the mental 
shock — that is what we have to fear : the 
symptoms all point to the brain as the 
seat of danger.” 

Mrs. Malvern trembled, but she was a 
woman of strong heart, and determined 
to know the worst. 

“ You fear, then, that reason may not 
return with life,” she said, in a voice 
tremulous with anguish. 

“ The chances for life itself are so des- 
perate that we need not think of anything 
else now,” replied the physician, not dar- 
ing either to deny or to confirm her fears ; 
and Ruth returning at that instant with 
the necessary restoratives, he evaded fur- 
ther questions in setting about the well- 
nigh hopeless task of bringing Julia 
back to consciousness. While the others 
rubbed her hands and feet with stimu- 
lants, wetting her lips, from time to time, 
with wine, he carefully dressed the wound 


in her breast, and stanched the flow of 
blood she could ill afibrd to lose. Grad- 
ually, her pulse grew stronger, her limbs 
relaxed, and the color came back to her 
lips, but she showed no signs of return- 
ing consciousness. All night long they 
watched and worked ; she breathed, she 
1 i ved , — but that was all . About daybreak, 
by order of the physician, she was car- 
ried into another chamber, that if she 
should revive, the horrors of the past 
night might not be too vividly recalled. 
The motion seemed to have a salutary 
effect, for soon after they laid her down 
again she moved one arm slightly, and 
was seen to turn her head towards the 
light. It was a moment of awful sus- 
pense. They all stood back in breath- 
less expectation, fearing almost as much 
as they longed for the moment when she 
would open her eyes. 

Their suspense was soon ended ; she 
drew one long, feeble breath, and then 
the fringy lashes slowly parted. Mrs. 
Malvern beckoned to George ; he bent 
over the couch and called her name, — 

“Julia.” 

No answer, — only a wild, vacant stare, 
and George reeled backwards, covering 
his face with his hands, unable to endure 
the sight. 

“ Doctor, this is worse than death,” 
gasped Audley, staggering to the bedside 
and looking disconsolately into his sister’s 
altered face. 

The physician made no reply; what 
could he say in the presence of such af- 
fliction ? 

By night, a violent fever had set in, 
and the air of vacant immobility had 
given place to wild rolling of the eyes, 
accompanied with delirious ravings. The 
physician pronounced it a very aggravated 
case of brain fever, which, though almost 
inevitably fatal, yet left this one forlorn 
hope, that if she should survive, reason 
might return when the disease left the 
brain. 

For three weeks the dreadful delirium 
continued, George never leaving her bed- 
side, except for a little necessary repose. 
In her incoherent ravings, he caught 
many a random word that pierced like an 
arrow to his heart. She was constantly 
calling his name, and imploring him to 
come to her, but showed no sign of recog- 
nition when he spoke to her, nor gave 
any heed to his tenderest caresses. 

At last, on the twenty-first day, the 
fever began to abate, and towards even- 
ing Julia sank into a heavy, deathlike 
stupor. Then the doctor said the crisis 
14 


210 


A FAMILY SECRET, 


had come. She might wake out of that 
stupor with reason restored, but the dan- 
ger was that it would be only a brief 
gleam of light, as she must sink into a 
state of almost hopeless exhaustion when 
the fever left her. Four anxious watchers 
— Mrs. Malvern, Audley, Ruth, and 
George — sat by the bed all that night 
and all next day, waiting in awful sus- 
pense for the moment of waking, if, in- 
deed, that moment was ever to come. 

Abou^ four o’clock in the afternoon 
her breathing had become almost imper- 
ceptible, and it seemed as if she had 
already passed away. Mrs. Malvern rose, 
leaned over the bed, and placed her hand 
on the thin, colorless lips, to see if life 
had really become extinct, when, all at 
once, Julia slowly opened her eyes and 
looked into her mother’s face with a smile 
of loving recognition. 

If Mrs. Malvern had not been a person 
of remarkable self-control the sudden joy 
would have been too much for her, but 
she was one who never lost her presence 
of mind. Motioning George to keep out 
of view, lest the sight of him should prove 
too agitating for the invalid in her ex- 
hausted state, she sat down quietly on 
the side of the bed and took Julia’s hands 
in her own. Julia was the first to speak, 
and her words showed that her thoughts 
were fixed upon eternity. 

“Is the bishop here?” she asked, in a 
voice so feeble that Mrs. Malvern had to 
put her ear close to Julia’s lips to catch 
the sound. 

“ He shall be here directly, my child, 
if you wish it,” said her mother. “ He 
has remained at Sandowne on your ac- 
count ever since you have been sick, and 
shall be sent for.” 

“ He cannot come too soon,” said Julia. 
And a messenger was dispatched imme- 
diately for the holy man. 

Mrs. Malvern was glad her daughter 
had made an opening to introduce the 
painful subject on which, as a Christian 
woman, she felt it her duty to speak to 
her. 

“ My child,” she said, after a little 
pause, “ your condition is a very desperate 
one *, do you feel willing to die ?” 

“ Life has nothing to offer me, mother, 
that I should desire to cling to it,” she 
answered, sadly. 

There was silence a moment, and then 
she called her brother’s name. Audley 
stooped down and kissed her. 

“ And where is Ruth?” she asked. “I 
must see her, too, before I go.” 

Audley put his arm around Ruth and 


drew her to the bedside. “Isn’t there 
some one else you would like to see, 
Julia?” he whispered, bending over her. 

“No, it’s no use,” she answered, 
motirnfully, for she knew very well whom 
he meant. “Nothing can move him, not 
even my death.” 

Audley made no reply, but beckoned 
to George, who was standing at the head 
of the bed, to come forward. George 
threw himself on his knees beside her 
couch, and, taking Julia’s wasted hands 
in his own, buried his face in them, un- 
able to speak. There was no need of 
words, those two hearts understood each 
other at last without the aid of language. 
With a great effort Julia disengaged one 
of her hands from George’s grasp, and 
laid it tenderly on his head, while she 
softly whispered his name. It was 
enough. George knew then, as he might 
have known before he knelt there, that 
his pardon was sealed. 

“ Oh, Julia!” he cried, his heart wrung 
at the memory of his former obduracy, 
“ can you forgive so easily, when I was 
so hard, so cruel ?” 

“We have both been cruel, George,” 
she answered ; “ cruel to ourselves and to 
each other, but Ave will make the future 
atone for the past. I am not going to 
die yet, you see, after all,” she continued, 
turning to her mother with a quiet smile ; 
“ there is too much to live for now and 
she fixed her eyes upon George with a 
look full of happiness and love. It was 
almost incredible how that one moment 
had altered her. 

George leaned over and whispered 
something in her ear. 

“ Yes,” she answered, with a smile ; 
“ let it be so ; we cannot begin our new 
life too soon.” 

“ Audley,” said George, turning to his 
friend, “ Julia and I want to be married 
when the bishop comes ; make ready for 
the wedding.’^ 

It was no time for questioning any 
wish of Julia’s, and the necessary prepa- 
rations Avere quickly made. The bishop 
arrived about dusk, and was conducted 
immediately to Julia’s chamber, whither 
George’s mother, together with his aunt 
and uncle, had been summoned to witness 
the solemn nuptials. There, under the 
very shadow of the destroying angel’s 
wing, those two, who had learned their 
lesson of life through such stormy trials, 
were united in peace at last, never to be 
sundered again, as they mutually vowed, 
“ till death did them part.” The words 
seemed awfully solemn, and one of them 


EVERYBODY GETS MARRIED AND LIVES HAPPY, 


211 


so near the grave ; but heaven had de- 
creed that the parting was not to be yet. 

As soon as the marriage was over, 
George placed his wife’s head on his arm 
and drew her close to his breast. 'Pil- 
lowed so tranquilly, with the eyes whose 
light made all the sunshine of her life 
resting upon her, Julia soon fell into a 
soft, refreshing slumber, nature’s OAvn 
sweet restorer, and from that hour she 
began to mend. Her convalescence was 
slow and tedious, but the day came at 
last when she was able to leave her own 
room. It was on Ruth’s wedding-day 
that she first made her appearance in the 
parlor at the White House, leaning on 
her husband’s arm, the proudest and 
happiest bride of the two. 


CHAPTER XLIX. 

EVERYBODY GETS MARRIED, AND LIVES 
HAPPY FOREVER AFTER. 

Little more remains to be told in 
bringing this narrative to a close. 
Audley found no difficulty in making 
good all his wife’s claims, for, besides the 
evidence furnished by Seabury’s dying 
revelations, a few significant threats 
from that redoubtable official. Judge 
Lynch, soon convinced Mr. iEneas Tad- 
pole that it was the duty of a minister 
of the gospel to espouse the cause of 
truth and honesty, since there was noth- 
ing further to be gained by fraud and 
deceit. He accordingly determined, with 
commendable prudence, to save himself 
by turning State’s evidence against the 
miserable author of the plot in which his 
worthy parent had been such an efficient 
accomplice; and as the excellent Nehe- 
miah Tadpole had provided his son with 
all the evidence he possessed relating to 
the subject, for the laudable purpose of 
black-mailing Mr. Ilarfleur, if not in the 
interests of the gospel, at least for the 
benefit of one of its expounders, his rev- 
elations proved of considerable impor- 
tance. 

But if iEneas saved himself from the 
clutches of the law by betraying what 
he knew to the disadvantage of others, 
he did not escape some sad indignities 
to his sacred person. Though he had 
smoothed over his father’s share in the 
conspiracy with much art, by represent- 
ing that innocent saint as the dupe of 


Ilarfleur’ s wiles, and though no direct 
participation whatever could be proved 
against himself, yet the public indigna- 
tion excited by the discovery of so dia- 
bolical a fraud was very sweeping, as 
popular sentiments always are, and em- 
braced even the pious ^Eneas in its con- 
demnation. His virtues had never been 
duly appreciated, anyway, by the be- 
nighted barbarians around South Am- 
bury, who, it is to be feared, were rather 
glad of a good pretext for gratifying 
their ferocious and blood-thirsty instincts 
at his expense, — at least, this is the 
face Mr. Tadpole put upon it afterwards, 
when recounting his adventures to the 
sympathizing sisters of the flock that 
chose him for their shepherd on his 
return to his native city. 

Be that as it may, however, on the 
night preceding the day which Mr. 
Tadpole had appointed for his rather 
hasty departure from South Ambury, a 
party of masked men rode up to the 
house w'here he had taken lodging, — a 
negro cabin on the outskirts of the town, 
where he got his accommodations cheap, — 
and clamorously demanded the person of 
^Eneas Tadpole. Even the sacred char- 
acter of a “ minister of the gospel,” which 
he pleaded so earnestly in his own be- 
half, was of no avail to shield him from 
the fury of these men of Belial, for they 
dragged the pious hero irreverently from 
under the old mauma’s big wash-tub, 
where they found him concealed, and, 
stripping off his suit of respectable cleri- 
cal black, proceeded to clothe him with 
that peculiarly Southern invention, a coat 
of tar and feathers; after which, being 
placed astride a fence-rail, he was borne 
in triumph, at the head of a torch-light 
procession, to the town-pump, and there 
ducked until his ministerial breath was 
nearly drowned out of his body. Schuy- 
ler was suspected of having connived at 
this bit of amateur Ku-Kluxism, — at any 
rate, the perpetrators were never called 
to account for their outrage upon an 
exemplary and loyal citizen. One such 
hint was sufficient to make -Eneas shake 
the dust of South Ambury from his feet 
forever, and when last heard from he was 
the popular pastor of one of the largest 
and most influential churches in his 
native city of Boston, where he still de- 
rives great Sclat from the martyrdom he 
once suffered at the hands of Southern 
barbarians. 

There was some difficulty in clearing 
the mystery as to how Nettie’s betrothal 
ring, which she would never on any ac- 


212 


A FAMILY SECRET, 


count remove from her finger, fell into 
the hands of Mr. Ilarfleur, to he returned 
in the letter he had forged to Seabury ; 
but this was finally solved by the con- 
fession of the woman Cleopatra, who ac- 
knowledged that she had stolen it, at Mr. 
Ilarfleur’ s instigation, while her young 
mistress was asleep ; she being at that 
time a servant in Randolph Bruen’s 
household. 

And the chief actor in this dark drama 
of crime, — what had become of him, and 
what was he doing while his dark secrets 
were being unveiled? This is a question 
which no mortal tongue will ever answer. 
On the night of the dreadful catastrophe 
recorded in the last chapter he had 
seemed inclined to make light of the first 
alarm, and did not show any unusual 
alacrity in hastening to the fatal scene, 
but upon hearing that it was Miss Mal- 
vern who had been murdered he was ob- 
served to turn deadly pale, and muttered 
a dreadful imprecation. He entered 
Julia’s room with the rest, who went 
crowding, pell-mell, during the first 
moments of confusion and horror, gazed 
at this last victim of his cunning, as she 
lay pale and motionless on the bed, then 
hurried away, stern and silent, as he had 
come. No one thought about him any 
more amid the horror and confusion of 
that night, and by morning he was gone, 
nobody could tell where. Upon subse- 
quent inquiry, a servant declared that he 
had seen him, shortly after the alarm 
about Miss Malvern, go to a secretary 
where he was in the habit of keeping his 
private papers, secure a small package, 
and then walk out at the front door, but in 
what direction he had then proceeded the 
servant could not tell. This was the last 
certain trace of him that could ever be 
discovered. About three weeks afterwards 
a body was found floating in the Alta- 
maha, bloated and disfigured beyond re- 
cognition, but supposed, by certain marks 
about the clothing, and by the beautiful 
regularity and whiteness of the teeth, — a 
feature for which Mr. Ilarfleur was re- 
markable, — to be the missing man. The 
identity, however, could never be estab- 
lished conclusively, and to this day it is 
not known whether the miserable victim 
of his own conspiracy sought refuge in 
voluntary death from the shame and con- 
fusion that were about to overwhelm him, 
or whether he went forth a nameless 
wanderer, to hide his burden of guilt and 
dishonor in some far-otf land. Cold, sel- 
fish, secret to the last, did he sneak away, 
leaving his children to bear alone the 


[ heritage of shame he had left them, or 
I did some faint gleam of a nobler nature 
break out in the sunset of his day, re- 
vealing to him a hope that it would be 
better for them were the temptation to 
vengeance upon him removed ? For 
months he had felt the coils of his own 
guilty past slowly tightening round him. 
How he had struggled in secret to free 
himself from the meshes of one web of 
guilt by weaving another to entangle 
fresh victims the reader of these pages 
knows full well, but the time had come 
at last when fraud and deceit could avail 
him no longer. AVhat his end was God 
alone can tell. No certain tidings of him 
ever reached his family, and perhaps it 
•is as well that no hand should lift the 
veil from a life which charity would 
prompt us to hide in darkness forever. 

Ruth generously bestowed upon her 
brother and sister the same foidunes that 
they would have inherited had their fa- 
ther’s fraud never been detected. She 
did not avail herself of the clause in old 
Randolph Bruen’s will, which would have 
made her sole heiress of her grandfather’s 
boundless acres, as well as of the untold 
thousands of the India merchant. She 
contented herself with her father’s wealth, 
which certainly ought to have been enough 
to gratify any reasonable degree of cupid- 
ity, and divided her mother’s fortune, or 
rather its equivalent, for she reserved the 
family homestead to herself, between her 
brother and sister. Claude, not long after- 
wards, married Schuyler, and is now one 
of the reigning belles of the “ republican 
court,” where, as pedigrees are never in- 
quired into very rigidly, she has never 
sufieredany public humiliation on account 
of her own. Bruen accompanied his 
favorite sister when she went abroad, soon 
after her marriage, and was placed at a 
gymnastic institute in Paris, where his 
deformity, though not cured, was very 
much mitigated, and his temper improved 
in proportion. He afterwards went to 
Italy to prosecute his art-studies, and his 
pictures have already begun to attract the 
attention of connoisseurs in the great art- 
centres of Europe. 

Nan Hackett remained a confirmed 
lunatic from the night of her attack upon 
J ulia. She was placed in the State asylum 
and ample provision made for her main- 
tenance, through the generosity of Mrs. 
George Dalton ; but the most careful 
treatment never restored her to lucidity, 
even for the shortest interval. Her wild 
ravings gave no clue to the motive that 
had led to her first terrible outbreak, and 


EVERYBODY GETS MARRIED AND LIVES HAPPY. 


213 


Audley was never made aware of the 
fatal passion he had so unwittingly in- 
spired. He had been kind and courteous 
to Nan, and had expressed, by his manner, 
the sympathy that her misfortunes and 
forlorn condition naturally awakened in 
a noble and generous heart *, but he 
little dreamed what a fatal impression a 
few acts of common courtesy would make 
upon a poor girl who had probably never 
heard a word of kindness before. 

The reader, no doubt, feels some curi- 
osity to know what became of our friend 
Major Maelstrom in the general winding 
up of affairs *, and, truly, this veracious 
historian wishes there was a less melan- 
choly fate to be recorded of him. Mrs. 
Norgood set upon him with redoubled 
efforts after his return from the wars, and 
the miserable man rushed blindly upoij 
his fate. She tried at first to divert his 
attentions from Mary, who was already 
provided for, to one of her unmarried 
daughters, but when she saw that there 
was absolutely no chance for Victoria 
Regina or Estramadura Ida, she changed 
her tactics, like a prudent general, and 
conducted the campaign with such success, 
that, in six months after the close of his 
war with the bushwhackers, he surren- 
dered at discretion to the Norgoods, and 
little Mary Dalton was fairly installed in 
his household as Mrs. Major Maelstrom. 
The unsuspecting victim was immediately 
set upon by such a swarm of kin-in-law 
as soon made him realize that matrimony 
was a much more complex institution 
than he had supposed; - but, as the major’s 
troubles made a happy diversion in favor 
of our other old friend, George Bruen, 
the reader can no doubt contemplate them 
with serenity. 

Uncle Bruen behaved beautifully to- 
wards George upon his marriage with 
Julia. The circumstances of their union 
were so romantic, and the old gentleman 
had become so much attached to her, that 
he readily relinquished his own matrimo- 
nial projects for George. He did this the 
less reluctantly, since recent developments 
had made it desirable for Claude’s own 
sake that her future home should be as far 
as possible from the scene of her father’s 
crime and exposure ; while as to George’s 
living away from ^andowne, the old gen- 
tleman would sooner have endured that 
the foundations of the earth itself should 
be moved. He resigned Sandowne to the 
young couple at once, and retired to 
another of his plantations, which he per- 
sisted in regarding as more salubrious in 
the very teeth of a fearful siege of chills 


that all but shook him to pieces the only 
summer he ever spent there. After that 
he came to the conclusion that his liver 
was in an abnormal condition, and spent 
his summers at various resorts for invalids, 
in Virginia and North Carolina, dabbling 
in the water-cure system, till somebody 
fortunately put homoeopathy into his 
head, which lias been a never-failing re- 
source to him ever since. 

George and Julia spent the first two 
years of their married life traveling 
abroad with Audley and his wdfe. The 
ladies attracted much attention in the 
great social centres of Europe, where 
Julia’s brilliant wit and Ruth’s wonder- 
ful gift of song, together with the singu- 
lar beauty of both, quite upset established 
traditions as to the inanity and inertness 
of Southern women. 

But these brilliant experiences did not 
unfit them for the quiet life of their 
plantation homes. On the contrary, after 
"wandering over half the globe, they 
turned with greater affection than ever to 
those sunny solitudes that bore for them 
the sacred name of home. Audley often 
laughs at his first impression of the 
“ melancholy pines” ; and as he sits en- 
joying his afternoon cigar on the airy 
piazza at the White House, with his chil- 
dren playing around him, — a pattern of 
middle-aged respectability, — he often de- 
clares that this is the only country worth 
living in after all. 

A complete reformation took place in 
George Dalton after his marriage. There 
was not a more exemplary citizen in all 
the country ; and George used to declare 
that he was becoming alarmed at his own 
respectability until there began to be a 
great talk about sending him to Congress, 
and then he said he was convinced that 
he could not be quite so respectable a 
personage after all as he had supposed 
himself. People who remembered him 
in his wild days marveled at the change ; 
but when they saw him with his wife, 
and witnessed their unexampled devotion 
to each other, they ceased to find it 
strange that the influence of such a 
woman had wrought so powerfully upon 
his life. When his friends expressed 
their pleasure at his new career, George 
would laugh and declare that it was all 
due to his being so hen-pecked and ruled 
over by his wife ; but the look that he 
turned upon her whenever she came into 
his presence showed that it was a rule of 
gentleness and love, to which George 
yielded only a too willing obedience. 





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